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Could We "Wikify" Scholarly Canons?
An anonymous reader writes "'We can enormously extend the record; yet even in its present bulk we can hardly consult it' wrote Vannevar Bush in a 1945 Atlantic Monthly article. Nearly 70 years later, academics are still wrapping research in inaccessible journal articles. Might they be doing it wrong?"
HTML was created to be one giant open access journal of information. Thus heralding the dawn of The Information Age. Of course the "academics" will be the last ones to abandon their bogus and wrong practice of artificial scarcity of information. Instead of monetizing information which is infinitely reproducible and thus ECON:101 says has zero price regardless of cost to create, they could instead pull heads from asses and market that which is actually scarce: Their ability to do the work to create said information. Monetizing their ability more strongly would naturally follow the decrease in ablitiy to monopolize information. No work is done in a vacuum; The more information available to work from the better. Somehow they think that putting barriers in place to limit access of their work to those who would fund their future research is a good idea...
This is the first generation of the Information Age. Of course there will be some adjustments, but you'd think the supposed learned individuals wouldn't be so daft: The mechanic doesn't change you for each time you start the car, they charge for the work done once. Try getting a loan for your business plan of selling ice to Eskimos -- You'll be a laughing stock. Yet, somehow people think selling 1's and 0's to people with computers is a valid business strategy -- And we let them call themselves "scientists".
For shame.