Joe, I've seen a lot of knee-jerk reactions to this initiative in response to my original post.
There may be good arguments in both directions, but accusing pledge signers of being egoistical, when what they are trying to achieve is free access to research articles for all, seems a bit far-fetched. See below for a more detailed response to your points. On Oct 24, 2011, at 1:55 PM, Joe Touch wrote: > I agree with others; this notably doesn't boycott submission, only peer > review. > > That has a few net effects: > (1) - they're benefiting from the reviews of others without > pulling their own weight > (2) - they won't be on program committees anymore > > (1) is clearly irresponsible. First, they're clearly benefiting from the > reviews of others but not pulling their own weight. Second, they're failing > to train their own students in how to review papers, which is a key part of > their education as well as preparing them for life after graduation. I don't think this is what (1) implies. Anyone can shirk their reviewing responsibilities in this way today, without signing the pledge. Those that choose to sign the pledge clearly have something else in mind. If I sign it, my intention would certainly be to continue carrying the same review load as I do today. I would simply reject requests from certain venues, and be more accommodating to others, as I now have more time to spare for reviewing. I would hope and expect that most of the pledge signers have a similar take on this. With more quality reviewers available to venues with good copyright policies, these venues will undoubtedly rise in the ranks, gradually achieving the goal of the pledge. > (2) has repercussions as well. They no longer help promote their employer in > the community (being listed on TPCs is an advertisement of sorts). They also > no longer are able to impact the community through their participation in PC > meetings, which include personal networking opportunities and technical > direction. Again, I don't think things have to happen this way. For example, a signer may reject an invitation to IEEE / ACM conference XXX based on their copyright policy, and instead participate in ACM/USENIX conference YY which has a better policy, or even use the spare time and availability of (highly qualified but pledged) reviewers to start a new online journal with a more appropriate policy. > Finally, I'm assuming that: > - Google now offers advertising for free > - Microsoft products are available for public download > - UC Berkeley no longer charges tuition You forget that these venues do not actually produce the papers: we do. They also don't fund them: the NSF, NIH and others do. A colleague of mine chimed in with these statistics today: "Elsevier (publishing, not the Reed Elsevier parent company) received 2 billion EUR in revenue in 2010 and kept approximately 36% of that as profit." What exactly is it that Elsevier does (not their volunteering reviewers and authors), that justifies $2B/year of funding, and 720 million in annual profits? Jakob Eriksson Assistant Professor University of Illinois at Chicago _______________________________________________ IEEE Communications Society Tech. Committee on Computer Communications (TCCC) - for discussions on computer networking and communication. [email protected] https://lists.cs.columbia.edu/cucslists/listinfo/tccc
