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The Elsevier boycott one year on

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Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#31

Post by ScottBurson »

rayiner wrote: post #26
ScottBurson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're mistaken about why the authors are doing this. It's not fundamentalism; they just don't like to see the effort they invest in writing and reviewing these papers go to enriching the publisher while they, the mathematicians and scientists, don't see a dime out of it. Basically, the publishers have figured out a way to insert themselves as parasites into the system, based on the fact that many academics m…

The journals offer a service: branding and aggregation. There is nothing devious about it like you're implying (not any more devious than Google making money from aggregating other peoples' news articles). Your disagreement seems to be with the value of the service, and I think that's just a matter of you undervaluing branding and signaling. There are a lot of people who write a lot of tripe. Kooks, quacks, etc. Any…

So you agree, then, that this is just a business situation and has nothing to do with Stallmanesque ideology or Swartz-ish liberation of information, despite the superficial similarity to the latter (universities and journals are involved). You may not agree with the boycotters' perceptions of the situation, but that doesn't change the fact that they are acting in their own perceived self-interest.

Your comment that opened the thread is therefore off the mark. (For the record, I agree with your replies to 'clicks. I just don't think the argument you're having with him/her is relevant to this boycott.)

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#32

Post by gmac »

rayiner wrote: post #26
ScottBurson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're mistaken about why the authors are doing this. It's not fundamentalism; they just don't like to see the effort they invest in writing and reviewing these papers go to enriching the publisher while they, the mathematicians and scientists, don't see a dime out of it. Basically, the publishers have figured out a way to insert themselves as parasites into the system, based on the fact that many academics m…

The journals offer a service: branding and aggregation. There is nothing devious about it like you're implying (not any more devious than Google making money from aggregating other peoples' news articles). Your disagreement seems to be with the value of the service, and I think that's just a matter of you undervaluing branding and signaling. There are a lot of people who write a lot of tripe. Kooks, quacks, etc. Any…

As you acknowledge, the branding is almost nothing to do with the publisher itself though. Nobody cares a jot that journal X is from publisher Y (I don't even know who publishes most of the big econ journals I read papers in).

The 'branding' (and I think most academics would prefer the term reputation) is developed over many years by good decisions on the part of editors and reviewers — generally academics working for free — and by others making citations. The publishers contribute negligibly to this, which is why the substantial rents they subsequently extract — and the exclusivity of knowledge this promotes — are so annoying to people.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#33

Post by czr80 »

rayiner wrote: post #23
clicks wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oops, sorry I misread you. > If the fact that something has a marginal cost approaching $0 means you are morally obligated to provide it for a price approaching $0, why is there not a similar moral obligation to provide something that has a marginal cost of $3 for $3? If it were up to me, it would be -- or roughly something like that. But I have supposedly radical views on a lot of things (FWIW I affiliate to a local…

I disagree with you, but admire your consistency. I think a lot of people pushing for "free information" draw an arbitrary distinction between digital things that are almost free to reproduce and physical things that are fairly cheap to reproduce.

I think the real difference here is not so much that the marginal cost of digital goods is low, but that customers also own the means of reproduction. That is the fundamental difference that leads to arguments over rights, and then to arguments over morals, as these things often do.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#34

Post by czr80 »

gmac wrote: post #32
rayiner wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The journals offer a service: branding and aggregation. There is nothing devious about it like you're implying (not any more devious than Google making money from aggregating other peoples' news articles). Your disagreement seems to be with the value of the service, and I think that's just a matter of you undervaluing branding and signaling. There are a lot of people who write a lot of tripe. Kooks, quacks, etc. Any…

As you acknowledge, the branding is almost nothing to do with the publisher itself though. Nobody cares a jot that journal X is from publisher Y (I don't even know who publishes most of the big econ journals I read papers in). The 'branding' (and I think most academics would prefer the term reputation) is developed over many years by good decisions on the part of editors and reviewers — generally academics working fo…

Well, for what it's worth publishers are responsible for maintaining those editorial boards, over time periods much longer than academic careers. They care about the long term sustainability of the journals for commercial reasons, of course.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#35

Post by shardling »

rayiner wrote: post #8

This "free as in speech" == "free as in beer" shtick has become weird. When you're more fundamentalist than RMS it's time to step back and introspect.

Having read the article, this comment seems to come out of nowhere.

The content creators want their work to be free, and none of the stuff you're posting seems to touch on that.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#36

Post by czr80 »

shardling wrote: post #35
rayiner wrote: post #8

This "free as in speech" == "free as in beer" shtick has become weird. When you're more fundamentalist than RMS it's time to step back and introspect.

Having read the article, this comment seems to come out of nowhere. The content creators want their work to be free, and none of the stuff you're posting seems to touch on that.

If that's all they wanted it would be easy - just post it on a blog. What they really want is access to the journal infrastructure - I'm reminded of the French newspapers who want Google to pay them for inclusion in Google news, on the basis that they produce the content.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#37

Post by czr80 »

scott_s wrote: post #10
aswanson wrote: post #2

I would like to see a similar effort directed towards the IEEE and Acm publishing associations. They both leech off of publicly funded research and impede scientific and technological progress with their myriad paywalls.

They are professional organizations, not just publishers. As professional organizations, their primary goal is to support their members and the betterment of the field. They may not always have paywalls; unlike Elsivier, their organization exists for purposes other than getting money from publications. The co-chairs of the ACM Publishing Board recently wrote an editorial, "Positioning ACM for an Open Access Future":…

Elsevier and other large publishers publish many journals on behalf of societies, so the distinction between the interests of professional organisations and publishers doesn't really work.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#38

Post by pcrh »

rokk88 wrote: post #3
aswanson wrote: post #2

I would like to see a similar effort directed towards the IEEE and Acm publishing associations. They both leech off of publicly funded research and impede scientific and technological progress with their myriad paywalls.

>off of

"Off of" is one of my pet peeves as well. Unfortunately, its usage is legitimate, if sometimes unpopular.

"Off of used to be standard in English; the MWDEU starts off with a Shakespearean usage [1592] and continues with Pepys [1668] and Bunyan [1678]. In the last century, they show it used by Hemingway, Faulkner, and Harry Truman, among others. So if it is making a comeback, it’s no harbinger of linguistic doom, just a return to form."

http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/on-off-of/

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#39

Post by joelthelion »

scott_s wrote: post #10
aswanson wrote: post #2

I would like to see a similar effort directed towards the IEEE and Acm publishing associations. They both leech off of publicly funded research and impede scientific and technological progress with their myriad paywalls.

They are professional organizations, not just publishers. As professional organizations, their primary goal is to support their members and the betterment of the field. They may not always have paywalls; unlike Elsivier, their organization exists for purposes other than getting money from publications. The co-chairs of the ACM Publishing Board recently wrote an editorial, "Positioning ACM for an Open Access Future":…

>their primary goal is to support their members and the betterment of the field

Their primary goal is securing a nice remuneration for the members of their board.

I've been in this field for a long time and I want to see these organizations disappear. We don't need them (anymore).

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#40

Post by takluyver »

czr80 wrote: post #36
shardling wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read the article, this comment seems to come out of nowhere. The content creators want their work to be free, and none of the stuff you're posting seems to touch on that.

If that's all they wanted it would be easy - just post it on a blog. What they really want is access to the journal infrastructure - I'm reminded of the French newspapers who want Google to pay them for inclusion in Google news, on the basis that they produce the content.

It's not so much the infrastructure, it's the stamp of approval that publishing in a peer-reviewed journal gives your work. Work you post on a blog wouldn't be seen as serious scientific output.
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