I must confess to being strangely confused by this animosity to Jimmy Wales. But my confusion is irrelevant, as is this discussion. Willetts has spoken and Wales is appointed. Willetts is an ally* and I think Wales could be too - if we allow him to be.
Any chance that we can now go back to ranking the 136 good reasons for OA in strict priority order? Thanks David *I'm expecting the text to be made available shortly, but today Willetts gave an excellent speech to the Publishers Association in favour of open access On 2 May 2012, at 16:03, Stevan Harnad wrote: > On 2012-05-02, at 10:37 AM, CHARLES OPPENHEIM wrote: > >> Stevan states: >>> SH: At the moment, Jimmy Wales does not have a clue about what are the real >>> problems of getting OA provided by researchers; nor does he have a clear >>> understanding of (or any experience with) peer review. >> >> CO: I'd be interested to see his evidence for these assertions. Has he >> talked to JW on these >> topics? Has JW written stuff demonstrating his ignorance? > > I suggest that whoever has JW's (no doubt rather costly) ear ask him. > > I'm quite ready to be proven wrong. (But the default option is not > that everyone is knowledgeable about OA until proven ignorant.) > > When people have a clue about the real problems of getting OA > to peer-reviewed research provided by researchers, the OA community > tends to hear about it. Crackpot ideas are far more frequent, I'm afraid. > > And if anyone who has never peer-reviewed nor written peer-reviewed > papers has a clear understanding of peer review, I'd love to hear from > them. > > (I'm so much more familiar with those who have done peer > review and had it done unto them, and yet still have only the foggiest > notion of what it's all about and how it works. For that you need people > who have umpired peer review, by editing peer reviewed journals...) > > Stevan Harnad > >> >> --- On Wed, 2/5/12, Stevan Harnad <harnad at ECS.SOTON.AC.UK> wrote: >> >> From: Stevan Harnad <harnad at ECS.SOTON.AC.UK> >> Subject: Re: Wikipedia founder to help in [UK] government's research scheme >> To: JISC-REPOSITORIES at JISCMAIL.AC.UK >> Date: Wednesday, 2 May, 2012, 15:31 >> >> On 2012-05-02, at 9:28 AM, Jan Velterop wrote: >> >>> On 2 May 2012, at 13:32, Stevan Harnad wrote: >>>> >>>> Andrew is so right (and the current UK government is showing as much good >>>> sense in turning to JW as they showed for many years in turning to RM). >>>> >>>> Wikipedia is based on the antithesis of peer review. Asking JW to help make >>>> sure peer-reviewed research is available to all is like asking McDonalds to >>>> help the WHO/FDA make sure that wholesome food is available to all. >>> >>> Ach, come off it, Stevan. By your reckoning arXiv is also the antithesis of >>> peer review. Would you talk in the same way about Paul Ginsparg? >> >> Arxiv contains preprints of articles before and after peer review. Arxiv >> does not do peer review. Neither do institutional repositories. >> >> (Why do you ask about Paul Ginsparg?) >> >>> OA will gain from more involvement of people who understand diplomacy, >>> persuasion, and yes, 'marketing'. >> >> At the moment, Jimmy Wales does not have a clue about what are the real >> problems of getting OA provided by researchers; nor does he have a clear >> understanding of (or any experience with) peer review. >> >> This can all be remedied, if someone has JW's ear, and he listens and >> understands. >> >> Then JW can be a helpful (though no doubt expensive) conduit to the ears of >> those (David Willetts?) who are in a position to do what needs to get done >> to >> make the RCUK mandates work. >> >> Meanwhile, regarding diplomacy and persuasion, I suggest that you give >> more weight to what Professor Rentier has posted >> about academia's attitude to Wikipedia. We are trying to win researchers >> over to providing OA to their peer-reviewed research -- not to win them >> over to some fantasied Wikipedia-style alternative to peer review. >> http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/2012-May/000372.html >> >> We've been down this path so many times, Jan. Is the appointment of a >> celebrity name now to be the occasion for rehearsing it all yet again? >> >> It's not diplomacy that's needed; it's effectively formulated and >> implemented >> policy. The RCUK already leads the rest of the world in OA, but its OA >> policy >> needs tweaking to make it effective. >> >> Stevan Harnad >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > GOAL at eprints.org > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
