what I find concerning is the sentiment expressed in the original email: "a petition you should care about," esp. where "care about" seems to mean, "will want to sign."
my understanding is that wiki-research-l is about research into and about how the wikis work. it is not, as far as I know, a platform for political endorsements, especially for ones not directly related to wikimedia (which this is not). the petition takes a political position about an issue not directly related to the wikis, although i do not deny that it may be of interest to wikipedians--but so are many things. is it not possible that some of us on this list might have a different take on the underlying issue, and that while we might also care about the topic that is raised, we may not actually endorse the position taken by the petition, and our reluctance might actually be considered and genuine? (as a matter of fact, in this case, I think I do support the petition, but its use of vague and categorical language makes me hesitant to sign it. the NIH policy you reference and which i do endorse includes at least two provisions not clearly indicated in the current petition: [1] the NIH policy specifically and exclusively refers to principal investigators and the institutions of *direct NIH-funded research*, a much narrower category than whatever is meant by "taxpayer-funded research"; [2] the NIH policy requires copies of publications to be deposited in a central free repository [PubMed], but does not comment on the existence of non-open source publication venues. this petition asks for "free access over the internet," which does not sound like the same thing as PubMed, even if that's what's meant; it sounds like it *might *mean "no more journals that charge for access," which in my opinion is an explosive request that attacks the livelihoods of many people of good faith.) The NIH policy, for reference: http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm. given the recent and in my opinion unwarranted and misguided attack on the nonprofit journal aggregator JSTOR on this list (somewhat retracted by the person who made the original comments, including the strange assertion that "we"--presumably readers of this list and contributors to wikipedia--"are unaffiliated scholars"), I would hope some care would be taken in approaching this matter in particular. some of us are academics and some of us do not, apparently, see it is as transparently obvious that all our work product should be available absolutely for free. (although i wholeheartedly endorse the widespread creation in US colleges and universities of institutional repositories wherein all professorial research is made available for free to anyone; i make all of my work available this way and have for over a decade, and I believe this kind of policy is rapidly becoming the rule here). i honestly don't see what the petition has to do with wiki-research-l, but at the very least, an acknowledgement that the rest of the list readers are intelligent human beings, perhaps some of us even working academics, who may want to read the material and make up our own minds would strike me as indicating the respect you ask Richard Jensen to display. one of Richard Jensen's earlier postings was about ways to get more working academics to participate in Wikipedia, which i do see as an ongoing issue of real concern. i did not see a big outpouring of support for his desire on this list, which worries me. I see signs of persistent assumptions that we do not read this list and are not part of the community, and I include the wording of the original post in this--since among other things, this petition is a direct request for the government to intervene in the working relationship between academic scientists and their publishers, and this list is run by neither academic scientists nor publishers and does not generally discuss policy issues regarding their conduct. Such assumptions do not inspire me to contribute more, or to encourage my colleagues to do so. I hope these assumptions are not widespread and I hope we are welcome to be part of the community. On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 1:45 AM, Dario Taraborelli < [email protected]> wrote: > With all due respect, your statement is simply false and ill-informed. The > NIH – as well as a growing number of large research institutions and > funding bodies worldwide – has been mandating open access for 4 years and > I'd like to see any evidence that this is "destroying peer review". There > are many sustainable open access models that publishers and scholarly > societies are adopting, the only thing this campaign is threatening is the > taxpayer's obligation to pay twice for research they have already funded. > > Best, > Dario > > On May 20, 2012, at 10:30 PM, Richard Jensen wrote: > > > that's a bad idea--it will destroy the financial base of thousands of > journals and throw the whole science community into turmoil for years as > the main quality control system --peer review--is destroyed. > > > > The alternative of direct government subsidy of journals is even more > dangerous, as it will give politicians control over what gets published. > > > > Richard Jensen > > > > At 11:19 PM 5/20/2012, you wrote: > >> (apologies for cross-posting) > >> > >> A petition you should care about: require free access over the Internet > to journal articles arising from taxpayer-funded research. > >> > >> http://access2research.org/ > >> http://wh.gov/6TH > >> > >> 25,000 signatures in 30 days (by June 19) gets an official response > from the White House. > >> > >> Dario > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Wiki-research-l mailing list > >> [email protected] > >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wiki-research-l mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > -- David Golumbia [email protected]
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