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Arrangement With Science Publisher Raises Questions About Wikipedia's Commitment To Open Access
Applehu Akbar writes: Elsevier, the science publisher notorious for maintaining high-priced research journals in a time when web technology can accomplish the same tasks for a fraction of the price, has donated free ScienceDirect accounts to a select group of "top Wikipedia editors" as an incentive for citations referencing its paywalled journals. This arrangement is being criticized for its effect on Wikipedia's accessibility and openness. Ars reports: "...Michael Eisen, one of the founders of the open access movement, which seeks to make research publications freely available online, tweeted that he was 'shocked to see @wikipedia working hand-in-hand with Elsevier to populate encylopedia w/links people cannot access,' and dubbed it 'WikiGate.' Over the last few days, a row has broken out between Eisen and other academics over whether a free and open service such as Wikipedia should be partnering with a closed, non-free company such as Elsevier."
...on tacking "-gate" on the end of every little dust-up? Just say no!
I mean, what if some other Wikipedia scandal comes up, will we have to make WikiGate (disambiguation)?
Call it "Wikipedia paid journal scandal" instead!
Which isn't all of what you need, but it is a better start than nothing at all. I'd rather see a link to a journal I can't read than no link at all.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
As far as I can tell, access to IEEE journals isn't any better than that of Elsevier if your institution doesn't have the cash to pay for the particular journal you want to read. If you're a private citizen forget it, you're not going to fork over the $35 or whatever it is per article just to maintain an interest in the latest bleeding edge technologies. I'm doing a PhD at a leading UK engineering institution, and the view there is if you publish in something other than an IEEE journal you've failed. The stuff we publish by default becomes closed off to the majority of the literate public. Someone already posted the reasons Elsevier are singled out for criticism (http://thecostofknowledge.com/) but since most ACs won't read the details and limit the argument to equating paywall to evil, we really ought to start bashing IEEE publishing - which I would gamble many Slashdotters might actually want to read.
I knew I needed to stop reading Slashdot and finish my PhD when I started to miss articles by Bennett Haselton.
This partnership says more about Elsevier than it does about Wikipedia. With so many researchers abandoning them, they are willing to make deals with Wikipedia, an organization they would have laughed at just a few years ago, just to maintain some kind of relevancy. I think it shows how desperate they truly are.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
...a row has broken out between Eisen and other academics over whether a free and open service such as Wikipedia should be partnering with a closed, non-free company such as Elsevier...
It's plain and simple --- Wikipedia has lost its compass.
They really should have been put out of our misery when it was discovered that they were deliberately running a whole set of medical journals whose only purpose was to a) print lies in exchange for big payments from big pharma and b) support one another's lies. That anyone is willing to do anything with Elsevier any more is a testament to their unwarranted power over scientific publishing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Closed access sucks. Yes, these publishers' practices are bad. In fact, I have refused to sign up for one of these free accounts.
But there's a really stupid trend on Wikipedia of opposing offline citations.
I've been editing Wikipedia since 2006, and I've always made use of the best, most reliable sources.
That includes some online stuff, but it also includes books, journals, newspapers, and other dead-tree material.
That's how you build the best encyclopedia. Citing only stuff you can link to is one of the strongest ways to perpetuate systemic bias.
Wikipedia should cite the best sources possible, but closed access is bad.
Here's the problem: the best possible sources are closed access, especially when we are talking about things in medical research and life sciences.
It is beneficial for active content creators to have access to these.
They will be able to create citations supporting articles on subjects that couldn't even be written otherwise.
Notability is a frequent issue on Wikipedia with articles on important subjects frequently getting deleted, because high quality citations have not been made to establish their notability ---- citations good enough to meet the criteria are only available through closed-access sources, such as professional journals.
Finally... the purpose of Wikipedia is to be the encyclopedia anyone can edit, Nobody ever said anything about the sources used by Wikipedia having to be the same
It would hobble the encyclopedia and greatly limit its coverage, if only free citations can be used.
I love the idea of a free encyclopedia..... and I love the idea of open access journals, BUT let's not delude ourselves into thinking that the canonical work in the sciences are always the open access articles.
E.g. In article discussing relativity, I would much rather see the cite in the journal where Einstein actually published, than some 4th order / quarternary source that someone preferred since it was an online magazine article available free of charge.
I would also point out... open access today doesn't mean open access tomorrow. Many times Online sources later go offline, or the publisher breaks the URL!
Now, what would be really cool is if Wikipedia could get a fair use "Excerpting" / "Automatic clipping" service, where readers of an article could click on an "Excerpt" link by the citation and see an archived exceprt from the article from online or scanned version, with the cited portion highlighted in yellow, and a bunch of context.
Then adopt a policy indicating that an excerptable source should be included for every referenced fact or assertion, when possible.