Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-05-14/Special report

• It's so rare that I find myself agreeing with Jimbo, or indeed am able to read quotes of his without getting miffed, that I almost stopped reading halfway through. Jimbo really is a good speaker when he's talking about free culture stuff (as opposed to his quotes on China, also carried by the Signpost, in which his total lack of area expertise showed through). Interesting read, thanks Tony1. Sven Manguard Wha? 02:40, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Amazing article, thanks Tony1 (and daniel, of course). This is a crucial topic, I'm happy and excited to see what it's going to happen. Aubrey (talk) 09:06, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• Thanks for a very informative and well-written article. To complement the statement "As many editors know, a frustrating aspect of using Wikipedia as a serious tool for knowledge acquisition is that article references often link to sources that require a credit card" by some hard data, let mention the recent blog post about the Foundation's editor survey (also covered in this week's News and Notes), where 39 percent of respondents named "lack of access to research materials like scholarly articles or books" among the top three problems that make it harder for them to contribute to Wikipedia. Regards, Tbayer (WMF) (talk) 10:28, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the pointer! -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 21:42, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• I find it very comforting to hear Daniel say that the current publishing practices are not the result of thoughtful consideration of all the options the world gained at the advent of Internet, but rather just the continuation of old practices which have not been reconsidered. I think that many people believe that organizations do things in the way they do to get some great benefit, but the reality is that many communities simply have not yet come to realize what great untapped potential could be enjoyed if more people understood the consequences of adopting open access policies. What an inspiring article this is! As an individual, it makes me feel empowered that by telling others about open access I am doing something with an impact. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:21, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
• I have long wondered why we restrict the distribution of knowledge and images by using the CC-BY-SA license instead of CC-BY. CC-BY is a much "freer" license. It allows a much wider distribution of info and images than CC-BY-SA. CC-BY-SA is another one of those true-believer religious beliefs similar to the old "non-profit" only license promoters that have gone by the wayside. --Timeshifter (talk) 23:47, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Well, firstly, we do have images that are CC-BY. CC-BY-SA is used for text because it's what is compatible with the GFDL, the previously used licence. GFDL was selected for Wikipedia because it was supposed to be a feeder project for Nupedia, which was by that point GFDL-licensed. Nupedia adopted the GFDL at the urgings of Richard Stallman, a compatible(ish) replacement for their custom Nupedia Open Content License, which was also viral by nature. I'm not entirely certain why Snager & Wales made the NOCL viral, you'd have to ask them; in any case the point is that the CC-BY vs. CC-BY-SA boat sailed a long, long time ago in very different circumstances and with probably very different considerations. - Jarry1250 ^{[Deliberation needed]} 16:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the interesting history. There are many ways to distribute info and images, and some of them may end up copyrighted. CC-BY is just easier to understand, and better all-around. If Wikipedia's text and media ends up in copyrighted material for sale, then that is fine by me. Wikipedia and the original image copyright holders still own the images and text, and so it will be forever free. At least at the source on Wikipedia and on the Commons. I think CC-BY-SA only adds a layer of confusion. Share alike is too much to ask for derivative images, text compilations, etc.. People pass stuff on in their books, blogs, websites, etc.. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:48, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

• Not to bust anyone's chops over this article -- from which I learned a lot -- but doing some further reading on this issue showed me that this article has a major hole in it. The author of this points out a significant barrier to shifting academic publishing from its current model to a more free one: if an academic doesn't publish a paper in one of a select few periodicals, then that academic will have no career prospects. It doesn't take much thought to realize that these key periodicals have the leverage to charge as much as the market may bear -- & then some. The old saw "Publish or perish" should be revised to "Publish with the right publishers or perish." -- llywrch (talk) 19:33, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
  • (PS Another blog on this topic is here, and its followup. -- llywrch (talk) 19:46, 16 May 2012 (UTC))
  • You are right in pointing out that the way in which academic career prospects are currently intertwined with publications represents "a significant barrier to shifting academic publishing from its current model to a more free one". The Boston Globe op ed that is linked from the article (written by the same Michael Eisen as the two blog posts you linked to in the comment above) puts it that way:

“ The solution is obvious: universities must stop outsourcing vital functions to publishers. They need to shift the currency of academic success from the title of the journal in which a scholar’s works are published to the inherent quality of their research. And they need to immediately stop spending money on journal subscriptions, investing instead in the new forms of scholarly communication appropriate for the Internet age. ”

-- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 20:44, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

In most areas of biology, there are open Access journals of as high quality and prestige as any published by the commercial publishers. In the other sciences, this is not yet the case--and the problem is not due to the commercial publishers alone; in chemistry, for example, the overwhelmingly most prestigious publisher is the American Chemical Society, a non-commercial scientific society, but its journals are not open access. The members of the society control this, and have not yet sufficient understood their own self-interest well enough to change it. There is no broad field of science where all the most prestigious journals are published by the commercial publishers. Libraries buy whatever journals the faculty insist on: librarians have the least power of any group in the scientific publication system. The researchers who both read the journals and publish in them, are the ones with the power to immediately change the system. Until now, their focused interest in their own careers has over-ridden their concern for the spread of scientific knowledge. DGG ( talk ) 03:09, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Comments from the journalist. The 11,000 signatures on the declaration will be important if they staunch the flow of top-notch submissions to Elsevier. That would make Elsevier work just a little to attract the best, thus sustaining their high citation levels, impact factors (IFs), prestige, and thus profit margins. (I wonder whether anyone will be checking that the signatories comply with their undertaking?)

A few interesting conundrums are at issue in this historic shift. The hierarchy of journals—whether free, paywalled, or dead-tree—will continue to be underpinned by exclusivity of content. Here, rationing is a commodity, a currency; it's a significant part of how a journal achieves a high IF, which in turn attracts good free copy and prestigious citations. This circular feedback loop operates naturally, but without the right competitive environment the likelihood is that it will end up serving some players in the industry and some knowledge producers at the expense of others. I don't see that this is good for intellectual advances.

It's a greater threat to the dead-tree pay-for-public-knowledge industry if open-access journals, at least in these early stages (like PLoS1) are both picky and not too numerous. As long as enough open access is A-grade, the shift should be self-sustaining. Later, as more open-access journals become available in each field, the hierarchy and competitive forces will be subject to re-organisation.

The situation is yet more complex because of a number of highly unsatisfactory features in the current model. For example:

1. There's much unfairness between the fields in terms of IFs. Engineering is particularly hard done by high-performing engineering researchers who resent the easy ride their cousins in physics receive. It flows through into disparities in h-indexes too, of course. Because of this, engineers often do poorly by comparison in the running for multi-field awards and grants. And let's not even mention the other fields outside the physical sciences.
2. There's a problem in scoping: how many superb submissions to Nature and Science have I seen returned with a note to the effect that "this is too narrow for our readership"? Sometimes people are relegated to submitting to low-IF journals for this reason alone. And in such fields as biology there's a geographical problem, too: make stunning advances mainly relevant to Canadian fisheries and you'll find you have to publish in the lower-ranked Canadian Journal of X.
3. IFs for newly and recently launched journals are often non-existent or relatively low, despite the quality of their content. This inhibits the entry of new journals.

Then there are the journals that cook things to increase their IFs in ways that don't reflect the quality of their content; it's hard to point the finger specifically, but we know it goes on.

The move to open-access might need to take these multiple factors into account: a revolution is a good time to fix up traditional arrangements that restrict the dissemination and re-use of taxpayer-funded advances, generate enormous financially flows from the restrictions, and create distortions that don't always align with scientific and scholastic goals and the notion of career fairness. Tony (talk) 04:48, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

• I think my single biggest frustration in trying to produce really good content is constantly coming up against paywalls. Google Scholar search finds me the exact thing I want ... but I click on it and find that that bit's not mentioned in the abstract, and I'd have to pay to get the full article. Which I can't afford. I could do so much more, so much better, if I could get to anything I wanted, easily, without having to try and find someone else who has access. Pesky (talk) 04:43, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

NPOV verb

• Could we please get a more NPOV verb than "revealing"? I'd say "claiming" would be more accurate, but "stating" would probably be deemed more NPOV. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:42, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

• By any objective benchmark, it was revealing. I'd have advised Fowler against unloading in that way to a Guardian journalist. Tony (talk) 02:44, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
• Additionally, the above article statement, -- The Guardian quoted Fowler as revealing that "being portrayed as the ‘enemies of science’ is 'downright wrong'. It's hurtful to spend your life trying to advance science and medicine and be told you're blocking it." -- is misleading because the Signpost puts into quotes words for which there is no evidence in the Guardian article that Fowler actually said. Then, in case the Wikpiedia reader missed that, the Signpost threw in the word "quoted" in a way that attributed Guardian words to Fowler himself that were not from Fowler. Rather, it is the Signpost, who wasn't at the Fowler interview, that quoted the Guardian's "being portrayed as the ..." characterization of Fowler's statement. The Signpost itself then threw its own POV characterization about the information being "revealing." -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 15:01, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks for spotting. Tony (talk) 15:51, 17 May 2012 (UTC)