[Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit

[Stephen Thorpe]

Lynn,

>it seems that your argument is against publisher profiteering from public funds<

Not entirely. I'm against changing the status quo in such a way that public money intended for research is diverted to profits for publishers. I'd much rather see that money spent on research (since there seems to be precious little of it around here, anyway), unless there are some real benefits from open access, but I'm not convinced that there are such real benefits.

>There are alternative models so why are you not exploring these?<

It makes no difference what I explore. My concern here is just to try to encourage people to think through the issues involved with open access, rather than just blindly accepting all the lobbying for it by stakeholders.

Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 18/1/16, Lynn Raw <lynn at afriherp.org> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
 To: "Taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 Received: Monday, 18 January, 2016, 2:35 PM
 
 Stephen, it seems that
 your argument is against publisher profiteering from public
 funds. Maybe if everyone forgot the idea of impact factors
 and other measures dreamed up by publishers (I believe these
 derive from ISI back in the 1970s) there might be a chance
 for other publication models to succeed. There are always
 costs even though web data is relatively cheaper than
 printing. However meeting actual costs will always be less
 that meeting these costs plus whatever profit margin is
 needed to satisfy company directors and shareholders. Many
 scientific societies and associations have moved from self
 publishing to commercial publishing models. I presume there
 is a good reason for this but I don’t really understand
 why when electronic publication costs could well be
 generated through advertising and membership fees. I see
 publishers charging over GB£30 for access to papers that
 they do not even hold the copyright to yet they get away
 with it. You may be surprised to learn that in the UK today
 there are at least two major printed daily newspapers that
 are provided free to thousands of readers. These are open
 access print newspapers whose revenue is generated without
 charging the readers or obtaining public funding. There are
 alternative models so why are you not exploring these?
 
 Lynn
 
 
 > On 17 Jan 2016, at 22:41,
 Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
 wrote:
 > 
 > The
 current system (reader pays for what they want to read) has
 proved workable, sustainable and accessible to date! Anyway,
 it isn't about that. It is about the way that open
 access is being lobbied for with all sorts of bogus claims
 about the public good. Nobody seems to be clear on who
 actually benefits from OA or how. As I said, one danger is
 that a lot of public research money will now go straight to
 publishers, thereby decreasing the amount of taxonomic
 research being undertaken. Another danger is that
 taxonomists without public funding will no longer be able to
 afford to publish. Maybe you don't care ..
 > 
 > Stephen
 > 
 >
 --------------------------------------------
 > On Mon, 18/1/16, JF Mate <aphodiinaemate at gmail.com>
 wrote:
 > 
 > Subject:
 Re: [Taxacom] Paywall our taxonomic tidbit
 > To: "Taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 > Received: Monday, 18 January, 2016, 11:06
 AM
 > 
 > Stephen,
 please explain
 > your plan/idea for a
 workable, sustainble and
 > accessible
 journal ecosystem. This is not a
 > trap,
 I just want to know
 > where the last
 60+
 > mails are leading to (a suspect
 nowhere...).
 > 
 > good
 night
 > 
 > Jason
 >
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 > 
 > Celebrating 29 years
 of Taxacom in 2016.
 
 _______________________________________________
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 The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be
 searched at: http://taxacom.markmail.org
 
 Celebrating 29 years of
 Taxacom in 2016.