(1) Wikipedia needs to be putting up good articles which means using the _right_ references/links, not ones chosen by the wrong criteria, in this case by paid links. There will be some science where an Elsevier journal is the correct reference. There will be much where it is not. So this sort of thing can affect the integrity of the articles. That is the primary issue. Not the Elsevier link per se, but the fact that deals like this bias the content of the articles, and thus reduce their integrity.
(2) OA as it is now sucks. I get a dozen emails a week from predatory OA publishers who want me to pay to write for them. The problem with OA is the feedback dynamic. If journal income is linked to NUMBER of articles accepted, this drives quality down (accept everything!). In a subscription model, journal income is linked to quality. And yes, this really is true. I work at a university and every year the academics are asked to review the journals we subscribe too, and you can bet that ones that cost money and are not much use get cut (well, unless a staff member is on the editorial board...). The _only_ OA journals that are any good in my experience (IUCrJ, say, or PRX or New Journal of Physics) are put out by established publishers who have a line of subscription journals and, importantly, who have a reputation to lose.
OA is definitely preferable ethically --the wider the dissemination, the better the scientific dialogue. And if the science is publicaly funded it ought to be publicly available. And Elsevier definitely charge more than seems reasonable in the e-world. But OA as it is is broken.
The best solution would be a consortium of universities that get together to run a mirrored server and do full peer review. Something like a CTAN or CRAN but of science/research. They could easily do it for the money they spend on journals and still make it all completely freely available -- they'd need an editorial staff for each discipline and sub-discipline, but they could be delocalised. It would be a bit like arXiv, but more comprehensive and less of a clique.
Yeah, right.
My 2 cents.
Linux
-------------
gFortran / g95 / ifort
vim and tde (http://adoxa.hostmyway.net/tde/index.html)
LaTeX
xFig
mrxvt
ImageJ
apt (only system maintenance I know)
Some browser. Ice weasel? Whatever.
Windows
------------------
Rietica
FullProf
Excel
Powerpoint and Word so I can collaborate with the great unwashed
Mac
--------------
Mac? Do I look like I'm made of money?
It's all about workflow, Once you have some bibliography files, an editor you know how to use, a few tools you can trust for making graphics in the right formats (I have to admit to using... xFig) then LaTeX is fast and easy and far more cross-platform than a word processor.
For papers in physics and maths, LaTeX is a winner. But it has the learning curve issue. Now and again I _have_ to write a paper in a word processor for a conference that will not handle LaTeX and it drives me mad. If you don't like embedding pictures in LaTeX, then you must have doing it in word, What are they anchored to? If you try to copy and paste, which properties come with the image, which don't? Half the time if you try to drag an image word sits the image off the bottom off the page or makes it go invisible. Open Office is even worse, half the time you can;t tell if it is linking to a file or embedding it and they just vanish leaving big red X everywhere.
And if you've never tried it, I suggest https://www.writelatex.com/
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.amazon.com/Not-Even...
(1) Wikipedia needs to be putting up good articles which means using the _right_ references/links, not ones chosen by the wrong criteria, in this case by paid links. There will be some science where an Elsevier journal is the correct reference. There will be much where it is not. So this sort of thing can affect the integrity of the articles. That is the primary issue. Not the Elsevier link per se, but the fact that deals like this bias the content of the articles, and thus reduce their integrity. (2) OA as it is now sucks. I get a dozen emails a week from predatory OA publishers who want me to pay to write for them. The problem with OA is the feedback dynamic. If journal income is linked to NUMBER of articles accepted, this drives quality down (accept everything!). In a subscription model, journal income is linked to quality. And yes, this really is true. I work at a university and every year the academics are asked to review the journals we subscribe too, and you can bet that ones that cost money and are not much use get cut (well, unless a staff member is on the editorial board...). The _only_ OA journals that are any good in my experience (IUCrJ, say, or PRX or New Journal of Physics) are put out by established publishers who have a line of subscription journals and, importantly, who have a reputation to lose. OA is definitely preferable ethically --the wider the dissemination, the better the scientific dialogue. And if the science is publicaly funded it ought to be publicly available. And Elsevier definitely charge more than seems reasonable in the e-world. But OA as it is is broken. The best solution would be a consortium of universities that get together to run a mirrored server and do full peer review. Something like a CTAN or CRAN but of science/research. They could easily do it for the money they spend on journals and still make it all completely freely available -- they'd need an editorial staff for each discipline and sub-discipline, but they could be delocalised. It would be a bit like arXiv, but more comprehensive and less of a clique. Yeah, right. My 2 cents.
... effort into the things that matter. Bah.
Linux
-------------
gFortran / g95 / ifort
vim and tde (http://adoxa.hostmyway.net/tde/index.html)
LaTeX
xFig
mrxvt
ImageJ
apt (only system maintenance I know)
Some browser. Ice weasel? Whatever.
Windows
------------------
Rietica
FullProf
Excel
Powerpoint and Word so I can collaborate with the great unwashed
Mac
--------------
Mac? Do I look like I'm made of money?
It's all about workflow, Once you have some bibliography files, an editor you know how to use, a few tools you can trust for making graphics in the right formats (I have to admit to using ... xFig) then LaTeX is fast and easy and far more cross-platform than a word processor.
For papers in physics and maths, LaTeX is a winner. But it has the learning curve issue. Now and again I _have_ to write a paper in a word processor for a conference that will not handle LaTeX and it drives me mad. If you don't like embedding pictures in LaTeX, then you must have doing it in word, What are they anchored to? If you try to copy and paste, which properties come with the image, which don't? Half the time if you try to drag an image word sits the image off the bottom off the page or makes it go invisible. Open Office is even worse, half the time you can;t tell if it is linking to a file or embedding it and they just vanish leaving big red X everywhere.
And if you've never tried it, I suggest https://www.writelatex.com/