Slashdot Mirror
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."
Time to fork Wikipedia. All we really need is Google to start pointing somewhere else for its #1 topic on (keyword).
Wikipedia will gain the ability to transfer closed knowledge into an open access model, citing back to the non-accessible source, spilling the closed-off knowledge into the open and strengthening us all.
That's a real thing. Hundreds of years ago, some idiot got it in his head that soaking in epsom salts was good for you, somehow; it eventually was said to "remove toxins", what toxins they may be never specified. Modern medical school repeats this, as many doctors have written their professional medical advice confirming the well-known effects of epsom salt baths on health in their ability to remove toxins from the body. Wikipedia can cite these texts to show that epsom salt baths have a biological cleansing effect, removing toxins from the body by drawing them out through the skin via osmotic pressure.
Too bad it's all bullshit.
A lot of studies carry information in contrary to what even professionals have put down in textbooks from their long heritage of professional knowledge. Much of that knowledge is bullshit, and much of that is known bullshit in the scientific field; too bad we can't access that information readily.
Rather than bringing that information into open access, people want to avoid soiling their hands by contact with a name or ideal they dislike. These are the same people who would let millions of peasants starve because it goes against some inborn moral position of theirs to feed them, for example because the available food is pork and pork is unclean.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Wikipedia has many, many problems, but this is not one of them. An encyclopedia project has to reflect the current state of knowledge, regardless of where it's published. You can't just leave out all the bits that aren't Open Access.
Wikipedia lives in the real world, and valuable content comes from all kinds of places, including companies we may or may not like. While it would be nice to think that leverage exists to get Elsevier to change its practices, that's at worst fanciful and at best a suggestion... hardly a scandal that. Or, as said best by James Hare of Wikimedia DC on Twitter earlier today: "Open access is not a suicide pact."
Well, current partners of the Wikipedia Library project include Adam Matthew, BMJ, British Newspaper Archive, Cochrane, Credo, De Gruyter, DynaMed, Elsevier ScienceDirect, FindMyPast, HighBeam, HeinOnline, JSTOR, Keesings, Loeb, MIT Press Journals, Newspapers.com, OCLC, Oxford, Past Masters, Pelican Books, Public Catalogue Foundation, Project MUSE, RIPM, Royal Society, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry, Sage Stats, ScotlandsPeople, Questia and Women Writers Online. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
... ;) The fact is this came about quite differently. Volunteers had for years complained about lack of access to JSTOR et al.; Jake did something to remedy that. And he started out doing it as a volunteer himself. Credo, HighBeam and JSTOR were first; Elsevier came aboard later, as one of many. This was in no way Elsevier's initiative.
That's a lot of VP positions to fill