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The Elsevier boycott one year on

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Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#51

Post by jrochkind1 »

joelthelion wrote: post #39
scott_s wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Those on the IEEE board get paid? That surprises me, although I could believe it -- do you have a cite?

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#52

Post by omaranto »

pcrh wrote: post #38
rokk88 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Why is it a pet peeve of yours? Do you have a reason you could explain our does it just rub you the wrong way?

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#53

Post by jrochkind1 »

tylerneylon wrote: post #11

I'd say the boycott has reached the point of crossing the chasm into adoption by mainstream users. There are still new people signing up all the time, but the pace is low. A bottleneck to mainstream use is the lack of overlap between hackers/devs and people who are most influential in academic publishing, such as senior editors. To developers the question is: if editors want to post their articles on the web, why don…

> how can I practically make my journal open access? There is a need for technology to assist in setting up open access journals.

I would like some further clarification of why you believe this is true.

The tech to make a journal open access is no harder than the tech to have an online journal with a paywall.

Is the issue just that if you go with an existing commercial paywalled publisher, they supply you with tech staff to do it for you, but if you aren't bringing in any income you have to figure out how/who is going to do the tech yourself?

That seems potentially legit, but it's not purely a tech issue. There are plenty of open access journals publishing using open source tech -- from tech like OJS (designed for that purpose), to WordPress, to static HTML. I don't think any of the tech solutions produce _great_ UIs -- but then again neither do any of the paywalled UIs, the bar is pretty low, unfortunately. I don't think lack of existence of software is really a barrier.

"Who is going to set up and maintain this software if we don't have money to pay them, and our editors aren't techies" is probably a much bigger barrier. But what would be needed to solve that isn't just 'we need technology' -- it would be -- and geez, I can't believe I'm just thinking of this for the first time spurred by your comment (thanks!), a hosted 'software as service' solution, grant-funded, that provides centralized free (or very cheap) hosting to open access journals. Might be a business opportunity there, in fact.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#54

Post by seanmcdirmid »

scott_s wrote: post #50
czr80 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think there is a clear distinction: Elsivier cannot go to an open access model, because it would cease to exist from lack of revenue, while the ACM and IEEE can continue to exist with an open access model because of membership dues.

The ACM already makes a lot more on conferences than dues, I think.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#55

Post by pcrh »

omaranto wrote: post #52
pcrh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Why is it a pet peeve of yours? Do you have a reason you could explain our does it just rub you the wrong way?

I guess my reasons are the same as those described in the link above, i.e. it is a matter of dialect, my own dialect of English doesn't use "off of" and it sounds ridiculous to my ears; it produces a similar reaction to being confronted with mis-use of there/their/they're.

However, English is a very ill-behaved language, and "off of" just happens to be one of its irritating aspects I'll have to put up with.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#56

Post by tptacek »

clicks wrote: post #29
rayiner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could very well twist that and say: I value the freedom of hard-working content creators to make money from their labor over the freedom of teenagers to get free copies of popular movies and video games, but I won't because the nature of the parties in question is really irrelevant to me. I value the freedom of creators of original works. Without them, there would be nothing to share. I don't care of those creators…

> Thought experiment: in games like World of Warcraft, weapons, armor, etc, are trivially reproducible. But would anyone play the game if you could just click on someone's weapon that he stole off a dragon (or whatever it is you do in WoW--I've never played it) and have your own copy? Not a very good analogy to demonstrate your point, as the scarcity of resources within the game is a central facet of the gameplay. ra…

The scarcity of WoW goods is precisely as artificial as the scarcity of high-def movies.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#57

Post by roel_v »

clicks wrote: post #29
rayiner wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could very well twist that and say: I value the freedom of hard-working content creators to make money from their labor over the freedom of teenagers to get free copies of popular movies and video games, but I won't because the nature of the parties in question is really irrelevant to me. I value the freedom of creators of original works. Without them, there would be nothing to share. I don't care of those creators…

> Thought experiment: in games like World of Warcraft, weapons, armor, etc, are trivially reproducible. But would anyone play the game if you could just click on someone's weapon that he stole off a dragon (or whatever it is you do in WoW--I've never played it) and have your own copy? Not a very good analogy to demonstrate your point, as the scarcity of resources within the game is a central facet of the gameplay. ra…

"rayiner, I often see you as the lone man arguing on these things "

Probably because it's so futile to argue fundamentalists. I know I have gotten better better at restraining myself from getting dragged into this sort of 'discussions' with people who are not susceptible to any form of reasonableness.

FWIW, it used to be that on this site, the creators were the ones celebrated. Nowadays it seems to have shifted largely to celebrating the freeloaders, or enablers of them.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#58

Post by shardling »

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.

Well, no, because they don't want to just publish articles, they want to publish peer reviewed articles. And the really pivotal point is that journals don't even pay the review boards.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#59

Post by CamperBob2 »

tptacek wrote: post #56
clicks wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thought experiment: in games like World of Warcraft, weapons, armor, etc, are trivially reproducible. But would anyone play the game if you could just click on someone's weapon that he stole off a dragon (or whatever it is you do in WoW--I've never played it) and have your own copy? Not a very good analogy to demonstrate your point, as the scarcity of resources within the game is a central facet of the gameplay. ra…

The scarcity of WoW goods is precisely as artificial as the scarcity of high-def movies.

Huh? WoW goods are key elements in a game specifically designed around their acquisition. IP is a tiny part of a completely different game we call the "economy," a game that was designed and refined around a radically different class of goods with essentially no attributes in common.

Trying to apply market-economic rules to IP is like trying to use a Zamboni as a lawnmower. Sure, it can be done, but you're going to have to force people to do it, and they are going to invent some very creative workarounds.

When you have to force people to follow the rules, it often means there's something wrong with the rules.

Re: The Elsevier boycott one year on

#60

Post by tptacek »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #59
tptacek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scarcity of WoW goods is precisely as artificial as the scarcity of high-def movies.

Huh? WoW goods are key elements in a game specifically designed around their acquisition. IP is a tiny part of a completely different game we call the "economy," a game that was designed and refined around a radically different class of goods with essentially no attributes in common. Trying to apply market-economic rules to IP is like trying to use a Zamboni as a lawnmower. Sure, it can be done, but you're going to h…

This is simply a difference of degree. If first-run movies were available to DVR off basic cable, they would also make far less money. In both cases, we discuss the economics of digital goods that derive value from an extrinsic scarcity.
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