David Worlock, An Open Letter to Kent Anderson

peter.suber's bookmarks 2019-01-24

Summary:

"[I]t seems to me that you [Kent Anderson] are in danger of over balancing , and I worry whether you are developing a monomania which disguises some of the generic developments taking place in scholarly communications overall . . In your recent coverage I have felt that you were pursuing a witch hunt against the originators of Plan S which tended to swamp rational comment on anything else . On the day when Clarivate announced radical changes to their finance structure that could materially improve their competitive positioning , what did the Geyser give us but another flood of innuendo  ? I have never met Robert-Jan Smits , or indeed the founders of Frontiers , but if you continue to make veiled allegations about them without one iota of solid evidence you will be widely dismissed as another conspiracy theorist with no real credibility . Guilt by association has never been attractive , as Joe McCarthy demonstrated . I was  a consultant for Robert Maxwell for two years , but you would find it hard to argue that i am expert in pension fraud as a result .  In Europe , by the way , we do not generally attack public servants as if they were politicians , since  they have no right of reply and we have not politicised executive functions to nearly the same level as the US , and jobs like the one Smits holds do not change with elections ....

Journals will not survive as they are , articles will change in media and definition , research results will reach users in semi and then completely automated ways . Most readers will be machines . Those  who know as much as you know can give the informed and critical commentary markets need  Please do not let us get confused with nostalgia , ideology and conspiracy theory on the way ...."

Link:

http://www.davidworlock.com/2019/01/an-open-letter-to-kent-anderson-e/

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » peter.suber's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.plan_s oa.debates oa.objections oa.people oa.academic_freedom oa.history_of oa.plos

Date tagged:

01/24/2019, 15:25

Date published:

01/24/2019, 10:25