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RE: The Big Elsevier Boycottathon
As promised, my reply can be seen here:
http://qilong.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/more-on-relative-evil/
I want to firmly state that I do not like Elsevier, or in fact many other
corporations. I detest corporate interest models. But on the other hand, this
argument is personal and related to my experience for having worked for
corporations since I was 19. When you feel the lash handed down from on high,
with all the heavy-handed or sugar-coated words of people sitting on thrones of
solid gold, with their parachutes and tax shelters to protect their interests
while paying you barely minimum wage, who balk at raising the wages to support
those who "provide" the services which they indicate "they" offer, I feel the
anti-corporation-sentiment most dearly indeed. But I think that the argument
against Elsevier, like my sentiment, is subjective: it comes from a populist,
anti-bourgeoisie movement to oppose the elites and the landowners, the money
makers and Scrooge McDucks of the world. You want to lash out because you feel
the oppressive actions, and they are _personal_. I think this clouds one's
judgement. To fight this, I try to think of the people at the top of the
ladder, the so-called .05%-ers -- who rake in the profits of corporations and
seem like they are utterly, completely unconnected to the worlds they run -- as
individuals whose corporations serve an interest or need that the people below
support or want.
Some of these publishers _do_, contra some arguments, provide a service, and
a means of enabling this service, for their consumers. Peer-review is not used
by all journals, or by all articles in a journal, and by some publications
seems to be a suggestion where the function of "blind" peer-review never occurs
(your co-editors and friends can review each others' publications! how neat is
THAT?!). The time, effort, and management required to achieve some semblance of
"blind" peer-review, as desired by various scientists interested in the ethical
balance it can provide (weeding out terrible things), should be compensated;
this is done when the paid editors receive their paychecks, but it seems guest
editors do not, nor are reviewers given compensation for their services. This,
I think, is bad. In my opinion, corporations such as Elsevier owe these
individuals a slice of their very, very large portion of the pie. The
altruistic desire of reviewers in the past, to provide their service without
charge, is to not slip into the "review for pay" that becomes a motivating
factor for reviewers to without review for payment, be positive for higher pay,
be negative for lower, and so on. This is bad, and should be strongly
considered when making arguments about compensation and what not, but the
alternative should be apparent by now: Elsevier, and others, continuing to
profit for arranging the review process in the first place, as they must find
reviewers, and editors must perform the actions that make anonymous review
work, as I detail in my post.
I think that the monetary compensation is a bonus, although perhaps it may
not be useful for Elsevier to shill it out, as this leads to the conflict of
interest reviewers have in making decisions. Perhaps, then, the governing
institution for the scientist should provide this compensation? If the
publisher does not provide for the enabling of peer-review, who will? Another
institution, corporation, etc.? Will we have the argument that if a
non-publisher "provides" for this, that they do not, in fact, do so?
Cheers,
Jaime A. Headden
The Bite Stuff (site v2)
http://qilong.wordpress.com/
"Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
"Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a
different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race
has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or
his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a Billion
Backs)
________________________________
> Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2012 16:55:32 +0000
> From: elliottgw@btopenworld.com
> Subject: Re: The Big Elsevier Boycottathon
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> CC: qi_leong@hotmail.com
>
> I think the argument revolves around the idea that they make a lot of
> money off of charging people for stuff they don't do themselves. They
> don't research, they don't review (in most cases that I've heard of,
> they don't even pay for reviewing) and then they lock all their stuff
> up behind paywalls. There's also an issue with them paywalling research
> that's been publicly funded. With the advent of 'free' journals on the
> web, I can see why people would get narked.
>
> Cheers
>
> Graeme Elliott
> www.subjectenrichment.com<http://www.subjectenrichment.com>
>
>
> From: Jaime Headden <qi_leong@hotmail.com>
> To: Mark Witton <mark.witton@port.ac.uk>;
> Dinosaur.Mailing.List@listproc.usc.edu
> Sent: Thursday, 2 February 2012, 15:56
> Subject: RE: The Big Elsevier Boycottathon
>
>
> I'm not sure Elsevier is becoming _more_ unpopular, but that people are
> more eager to voice their dislike for Elsevier, which is certainly
> deserved. My main beef with them is that they attempt to meddle in
> American politics through a US-based front company that lobbies for
> policies that benefit their international publishing house. They are
> not an American company, and I find Maloney accepting money from them
> to support their policy terrible. But that's where my distaste ends. As
> a company, they have every right, I think, to be free from the
> restriction advocated by scientists who (some of whom having dealt with
> the company personally) have what amounts to a populist argument
> (elites vs plebs, Occupy Wall Street, etc.) that ignores some of the
> finer details. I feel the argument is focused on the antipathy toward
> "Big Corporate" (someone on Twitter called it "Big Publishing," evoking
> the populist disagreement with Big Oil, Big Tobacco, etc. -- which, to
> be fair, earn hatred for other reasons, not the least being their
> benefiting from what they do to the environment and health of their
> consumers). But, that's my argument.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jaime A. Headden
> The Bite Stuff (site v2)
> http://qilong.wordpress.com/
>
> "Innocent, unbiased observation is a myth." --- P.B. Medawar (1969)
>
>
> "Ever since man first left his cave and met a stranger with a
> different language and a new way of looking at things, the human race
> has had a dream: to kill him, so we don't have to learn his language or
> his new way of looking at things." --- Zapp Brannigan (Beast With a
> Billion Backs)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------
> > Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2012 10:57:53 +0000
> > From: Mark.Witton@port.ac.uk<mailto:Mark.Witton@port.ac.uk>
> > To: dinosaur@usc.edu<mailto:dinosaur@usc.edu>
> > Subject: The Big Elsevier Boycottathon
> >
> > Hi chaps,
> >
> > It seems that Elsevier is becoming less and less popular with
> > scientists every day: almost 3000 scientists (including some
> > palaeontologists) have now declared their intent to never publish in
> > their journals via a petition online. Many have also vowed to never
> > perform peer review or editorial work for them, either. Given that
> > Elsevier publish a number of palaeo journals, this could have some
> > impact on palaeo publications. Details at:
> >
> > http://thecostofknowledge.com/
> >
> > And a report from Science:
> >
> >
> http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/02/thousands-of-scientists-vow-to-b.html?ref=em
>
> >
> >
> > Of course, there's lots of reading to be had in recent SV:POW! posts,
> > too (see
> > http://svpow.wordpress.com/category/stinkin-mammals/stinkin-publishers/).
> >
> > Mark
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Dr. Mark Witton
> > www.markwitton.com
> > Lecturer
> > Palaeobiology Research Group
> > School of Earth and Environmental Sciences
> > University of Portsmouth
> > Burnaby Building
> > Burnaby Road
> > Portsmouth
> > PO1 3QL
> >
> > Tel: (44)2392 842418
> > E-mail: Mark.Witton@port.ac.uk<mailto:Mark.Witton@port.ac.uk>
> >
> > If pterosaurs are your thing, be sure to pop by:
> >
> > - Pterosaur.Net: www.pterosaur.net
> > - The Pterosaur.Net blog: http://pterosaur-net.blogspot.com/
> > - My pterosaur artwork: www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton
> >
>
>
>