Revisiting: Splitting the Difference — Does an Editorial Mutiny at a Journal Do Much Long-term Damage? | The Scholarly Kitchen

"Editor’s Note: Last week the editorial board of the Elsevier-owned journal Lingua resigned en masse and left (or will be leaving once their contracts expire) to start a new open access competitor journal. These sorts of defections occur every so often, and as usual, attract a lot of media attention, filled with misinformation driven by a variety of agendas. It seems a bit confusing to me why a group of editors would expect a for-profit company to simply give them ownership of a profitable property or why, if those editors had an issue with a company’s policies and its prices, they signed contracts to become employees of said company in the first place. Elsevier’s published price for the journal does on the surface seem high for the market, but it’s unclear how much that price point has to do with how the company internally allocates funds from its Big Deal packages than as a reflection of what people actually pay for the journal. Further, Martin Eve seems upset that Elsevier has built a new office that includes a gym for employees, which is a bit odd given the over-the-top efforts by many universities to build similar luxuries in order to draw students. Arguments from both sides here have their merits and their flaws, but the good news is that we now  have a publishing environment where if you think you can do better than what is currently offered, you have a chance to create something new to try to do just that. The editorial defection brought to mind this 2013 post from Todd Carpenter, which took a look at what happens in these sorts of situations, both to the new journals created and those left behind ..."