Dear Rosalind, I'm very sorry you're leaving the AmSci Forum, and especially sorry you're leaving with the feelings you have. I am grateful for your having launched the Forum when you were at AmSci, for selecting me to moderate it, and for all your support througout the many ensuing years; this rather severe criticism from you came as something of a shock to me, but I appreciate your letting me know.
Let me just add something factual with which I don't think you will disagree: OA has been stagnating at a flat 15% throughout the dozen years that began with the AmSci Forum. For the sake of OA (which I really believe to be beneficial), I would have been more than happy to use either (1) the "public access to publicly funded research" argument, (2) the "open science/transparency" argument, (3) the "double-pay" argument for Gold OA (even though I happen to think all three are specious) if any had actually induced researchers to provide OA. But none has done so to any detectable extent. And that's why six years ago the Forum's focus was changed to focus on concrete, practical OA policy-making. By then all ideological considerations had already been aired many times over. My hobby horse is indeed OA mandates for the sake of research access, and there are very few of those as yet either. But, when adopted, the mandates really do work. If mine's the wrong hobby horse, then I will have squandered a dozen years for naught, and something else will eventually induce researchers to provide OA (or maybe OA was never destined to happen). But it's by now certain that neither (1)  the "public access to publicly funded research" argument nor (2) "open science/transparency" argument, nor (3) the library's "double-pay" argument (which is even older than OA and has been aired by librarians time and time again in their struggles with the serials affordability crisis) has been any more successful to date than my hobby horse in actually inducing researchers to provide OA. Nor is there any way to translate any of the arguments into practical action -- other than mandates. You note that you believe the real reason why the (few) institutions that have adopted mandates to date was either (1), (2), or (3) or some combination (perhaps including researcher access too). You may be right. Or maybe banging on relentlessly about making research accessible to its intended users (researchers) in order to maximize research uptake, impact and progress, and, in turn, for the benefits of research progress to the public (and the eventual easing of the library's serials burden) might eventually turn out to have been the effective rationale after all. And perhaps that could only be appreciated and acted upon globally once the alternative ideological rationales had proven themselves to be insufficient, ineffectual or incoherent. Either way, you have my unending gratitude for your help across all these years, Best wishes, Stevan PS There are many scientific and scholarly monographs that report research, and sometimes in ways that are more "accessible" to the lay public (i.e., more comprehensible) than refereed journal articles. But there's no way currently to mandate making those books OA if their authors and publishers don't want to do it. As to "open science/transparency":  since all research is published, it's hardly being kept a secret! What's missing (even for Harvard scientists and scholars) is researcher access to all refereed journal articles (and, no, even Harvard cannot afford paid access to all journals). As it happens, if you mandate OA for the sake of researcher access, public "openness" automatically comes with the territory. So the real question is: What will induce researchers to provide it at long last? You set a lot of store by openness/transparency as the inducement. I hope that one of us, at least, eventually turns out to be right, and that it won't be another 12 years before it comes to pass.... On 2011-11-25, at 8:45 AM, Rosalind Reid wrote: Hello Stevan, Just a farewell note. I'm finally leaving the AmSci Forum list because I have grown so tired of watching you ride your own particular hobbyhorse that I simply have to leave the room. Below is the message that was the last straw. You made it crisply clear, for the nth time, that you not only have no interest in fairness arguments having to do with making science open and transparent, you also refuse to listen to them and in every case reflexively urge others to shut their mouths and ears. Such arguments are, to me, as compelling as any argument based on access for researchers. Furthermore, you well know that the traditional publishing system is subsidized to give scholars access (through libraries). The leg you attempt to stand on is a fine argument for library funding and even more liberal policies of library access but truly fails as a sufficient argument for open access online. (And books--what a red herring! You well know that secondary literature--books, magazines, TV programs etc.--is not primary research output. It is not generally what the taxpayer funds. I believe the term for a supposedly logical argument  that relies on irrelevant facts is "specious".) I work now at an institution where investigators have access to more or less anything they want. Those faculty who are participating in the Harvard repository are not, as far as I know, doing so for "Harnad reasons." I urge you to respect the motivational power and the principles of those who advocate true open access and even real reform that embraces principles of social responsibility. But others have urged you to, and so I have no illusion that you will ever move your tent to be with the other "occupiers" of science publishing. There are many voices on the list that I will miss. Your shrill one I will not. I believe that I was the very first subscriber to the list so long ago. I thought you deserved a farewell, and perhaps I wanted to finally, albeit privately, get a word in. There would have been no point in saying these things on the list; I have no real standing in this matter as you see it, not being a researcher myself, and you would simply have snapped back with your usual arguments. Too bad. Ros Begin forwarded message: From: Stevan Harnad <amscifo...@gmail.com> Date: November 22, 2011 9:06:47 PM EST To: american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org Subject: Re: Double-Pay Double-Talk: Not a good justification for Open Access Reply-To: American Scientist Open Access Forum <american-scientist-open-access-fo...@listserver.sigmaxi.org> On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Michael Eisen <mbei...@gmail.com> wrote: Under the current model members of the public who want to access a paper are paying for THE PAPER twice. They are heavily subsidizing the subscriptions that pay for journals - providing far more than the cost of publishing through indirect costs and other means. And then they're paying again to access the article themselves. I wish it were that simple, Mike, but it's not. On Fri, 18 Nov 2011, Stevan Harnad wrote: Are tax-payers paying twice when universities pay to buy for their users books based on tax-payer funded scholarly and scientific research? If not, then tax-payers are not "paying twice" when universities pay to buy journal subscriptions for their users either. (Whereas if so, then Open Access is up against a far, far bigger obstacle than journal subscription access barriers: They are up against the entire book industry, including both its publishers and its authors. And US research funder mandates cannot and will not change that.) Please let's stick to the fair, real, realistic and unassailable rationale for mandating open access: Research is funded (by the tax payer) and conducted and published (by the researcher) so that its findings can be accessed, used and built upon by its primary intended users (researchers) for the benefit of the tax-payer and research progress.