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Re: Correction (RE: Thatcher vs. Harnad)

Responses to Professor Harnad are inline.--Joe Esposito


(1) Yes, there is an information glut.

JE:  One of the many points where we agree.
(2) No, subscription tolls are not the rational way to filter it.
JE: Subscription tolls are ONE rational way to filter information. There are countless others.

(3) Peer review is.
JE: This is the big mistake. Peer review is but one small aspect of the editorial process, which includes branding (what should appear in my journal?), a sense of the evolution of a field, and an awareness of what is being published competitively. Peer review prevents me from publishing an article on high energy physics, and we are all better for that, but the editors of a physics journal do much more than that (and, no, copy-editing is not a major part of it).

(4) Then the user can exercise choice, guided by the quality-control tags of peer review (the journal-name and track-record).
JE: Unsupportable. The journals disappear without the subscriptions. New, pure OA publications will fill a small bit of the breach and should be applauded.

(5) And open commentary can serve as a further, back-up filter.
JE: This is post-publication peer review, which I fully support. When I signalled my support for this on this list, I got roasted. Will some of the people who attacked me then please write Professor Harnad now? I am confident he will leap to my defense.

(6) Most of the attempted of defences of toll-barriers continue to be (often entirely unconsciously) papyrocentric, failing, deeply, to assimilate the nature and potential of the online medium for give-away research, written purely for impact, not for income.
JE: Oh, good lord. As though anybody knows. The sheer PC-centric view of the world by OA advocates makes for delightful party games in Silicon Valley. Of course, there are proponents of subscription publishing who are papyrocentric, just as there are OA advocates who are not economically and technically illiterate. But you have to look hard.

Joe Esposito

Stevan Harnad