> Rick here is making the most fundamental errors of fact, reasoning and > strategy in this area, and he is making them blithely and insouciantly > (as so many others do too!) without so much as an inkling that this > just might call for a deeper and more rigorous reflection and greater > informedness than he has seen fit to accord it.
I see two fundamental problems with Stevan's response: one concerns substance, and the other concerns style. I will try to be sober rather than blithe, and, er, souciant rather than insouciant in my treatment of both. (Dang, I may have failed already.) 1. Let's talk about "fundamental errors of fact." Not to belabor what Stevan calls a "monumentally trivial" point, but the documents he cites simply demonstrate that the OA establishment has adopted a definition of the word "publish" that is both absurdly narrow and professionally egocentric when applied in the real world. According to those documents (and many others like them), it means "to place an article in a peer-reviewed scientific journal." To those outside the inner circle of the OA priesthood, the word has a much broader, more generally accepted, and really more accurate definition: "to make an article publicly available." (I invite anyone who feels that this proposition is uninformed or reflects a lack of rigorous reflection to look the word up in a dictionary.) The point of my previous posting was to suggest that when those people -- the politicians, librarians, etc. whom Stevan castigates -- use the word "publishing" to describe what happens when an author makes his work freely available to the public through an OA archive, they are using it correctly, and should be spared the wrath of those who wish they'd adopt the OA establishment's more idiosyncratic and less accurate definition. 2. Stevan, I debated whether I should address the style of your message in a private communication, but since you have now publicly and lengthily accused me of gross intellectual negligence I feel that I need to respond publicly, if (slightly) more briefly: I suggest you settle down. The intemperate and inflammatory language in your response is unbecoming of you as a scientist, and has more to do with intellectual bullying than with rigorous argument. I can bear up under it alright, but I'm afraid that others, when they see the high price that must be paid for disagreeing with you (even on issues that you consider "monumentally trivial"), will be discouraged from participating in this discussion, and the discussion will be impoverished as a result. That's all I'll say in this forum on that second topic. Stevan can feel free to make a public rejoinder, but if I feel the need to respond thereafter I'll do so privately. --- Rick Anderson Dir. of Resource Acquisition Univ. of Nevada, Reno Libraries (775) 784-6500 x273 rick...@unr.edu
