To be clear, my rhetorical flourish was not a hostile reaction to the academy itself (I am a dissertating PhD candidate after all) but to rather to its members' patronizing attitudes as embodied by Richard's mischaracterization of Piotr's point and institutional powers' model of profiting from others' freely-given labor while actively undermining competing approaches to knowledge production. While there is a long-standing tension on Wikipedia between openness and credential fetishism going back to Larry Sanger's (failed) editorial process for Nupedia, (failed) attempts to institute a "defer to experts" policy on Wikipedia (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deferring_to_the_experts), and (failing) attempts to have unpaid experts write and regulate Citizendium, expanding the academe's participation in Wikipedia is an entirely different matter from resisting an arrangement in which the actors which add the least value to scholarship have a tendency to profit the most. To be sure, open publication models (e.g., First Monday, PLoS ONE) introduce substantially more variability in the type and quality of scholarly contribution, but insofar as there are no marginal costs for digital distribution, why not let a thousand (peer-reviewed) flowers bloom and the community of scholars adjudicate their value should citation and replication? As for JSTOR being "non-profit", that sobriquet hides any number of sins (see "health insurance providers") -- you're welcome to extrapolate the difference between the revenue associated with ~3000 US institutions licensing some combination of JSTOR's 20 collections at an average annual price of ~$10k (http://about.jstor.org/fees/13008) and compare them with $17m in annual expenditures of the Wikimedia Foundation.
While proprietary and open models for scientific knowledge publication each have their drawbacks, casting lots with the model having greater and more pernicious shortcomings through appeals to authority will not win many over. I don't understand how substantive peer review process will be substantially different under an open versus walled model. In the US, each still involves submissions funded by predominately by federal grant money or subsidized by (diminishing) state contributions, editorial control and review from hundreds of scholars freely giving their labor as a partial condition of employment by their home institutions, and distribution and archival in online databases supported and subsidized by institutional librarians. I don't believe anyone is arguing that knowledge production is free-as-in-beer: each academic domain will have different needs for scholarship (book reviews for history, rapid turnaround proceedings for computer scientists, etc.). Rather, these petitions reflect my belief that scholars should refocus their work towards outlets which limit the opportunity for Elsevier, et al. to enrich their shareholders to the considerable detriment of the austerity-wrecked citizens, scholars, and their academe who actually pay for and create this value. Finally, I believe we would be remiss as proponents of open publication if we did not also demand open publication of underlying data, programs, and algorithms and importance of replication as crucial components of scholarly work as we transition to new and more open models of science. On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 12:30 AM, Richard Jensen <[email protected]> wrote: > Sadly I think this discussion demonstrates some hostility toward academe. > (here's a quote from yesterday addressed to me on this list: "...knowledge > robberbarons standing athwart history imagining they and their institutions > alone, had the requisite skills and expertise to engage in knowledge > production. Until they didn't. Enjoy your new neighbors in trash heap of > history." I would code his emotional tone as "hostile") > > Well it's always nice to see people citing the lessons of history, > especially since I'm a specialist in that sort of OR. But the underlying > hostility is a problem that bothers me a lot and I have been trying to > think of ways to bridge the gap. There is in operation a Wikimedia > Foundation Education program that is small and will not, in my opinion, > scale up easily to the size needed. In any case the Foundation plans to > cut the US-Canada program loose in 12 months to go its own way. see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Wikipedia:Education_Working_** > Group/Wikimedia_Foundation_**Role<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/Wikimedia_Foundation_Role> > > My own thinking is currently along two lines: > > a) set up a highly visible Wiki prsence at scholarly conventions (in > multiple disciplines) with 1) Wiki people at booths to explain the secrets > of Wikipedia to interested academics and 2) hands-on workshops to show > professors how to integrate student projects into their classes. (and yes, > professors given paid time off to attend these conventions, often plus > travel money.) > > b) run a training program for experienced Wiki editors at a major research > library. (I'm thinking just of Wiki history editors here.) For those who > want it provide access to sources like JSTOR. Bring in historians covering > main historiographical themes. I think this could help hundreds of editors > find new topics, methods and sources that would lead to hundreds of > thousands of better edits. > > Richard Jensen > > > > ______________________________**_________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > Wiki-research-l@lists.**wikimedia.org<[email protected]> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wiki-**research-l<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l> > -- Brian C. Keegan Ph.D. Student - Media, Technology, & Society School of Communication, Northwestern University Science of Networks in Communities, Laboratory for Collaborative Technology
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