From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/7184 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Roberts Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: Gowers petition against Elsevier Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 11:48:33 +1030 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: David Roberts NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1327949778 3105 80.91.229.3 (30 Jan 2012 18:56:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:56:18 +0000 (UTC) To: "categories@mta.ca list" Original-X-From: majordomo@mlist.mta.ca Mon Jan 30 19:56:14 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from smtpx.mta.ca ([138.73.1.4]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RrwOd-0002qR-N4 for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:56:08 +0100 Original-Received: from mlist.mta.ca ([138.73.1.63]:40157) by smtpx.mta.ca with esmtp (Exim 4.77) (envelope-from ) id 1RrwNl-0004ap-AD; Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:55:13 -0400 Original-Received: from majordomo by mlist.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RrwNl-0006Lp-7e for categories-list@mlist.mta.ca; Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:55:13 -0400 In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:7184 Archived-At: Bearing the following moderator note in mind, I am happy to discuss off-list the contents of my email, and please direct any replies directly to me (and others you wish to include). I thank the moderator for his tolerance of this extremely off-topic post, and the TAC editors for giving us a quality free journal to publish in. > [ Note from moderator: While interesting, this thread is off-topic and list > policy does not allow for discussion. Posts sent after tomorrow will not be > forwarded. Thanks. ] One thing that people can do is be creatively subversive. For example, when publishing in a journal owned by someone you would rather boycott, but can't for various reasons, place the paper on the arXiv in a generic style (e.g. amsart.sty instead of elsevier_generic.sty if such a thing exists), as you are allowed to do (yes, you are), and then put in a sentence "A[n essentially identical] copy of this paper is available [for free] from arxiv.org" at the end of your abstract. Or perhaps one can thank, in the acknowledgements, "Tim Gowers [1] and Terry Tao [2] for their interesting remarks", and reference their recent blog posts: [1] http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/httpthecostofknowledge-com/ [2] http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/the-cost-of-knowledge/ This might need to be followed up with a sentence expressing agreement with their views, but the impracticality of following through on their suggestions at present. Nice, neutral sentences: if one doesn't look at the actual blog posts. If one wanted to try something really interesting, how about this for a thought experiment (assuming the paper is accepted): * Place paper on arXiv and on own web page * Submit paper to Journal of A, owned by a big commercial publisher. * Receive referee reports. If allowed, post these on your web page, removing trivial stuff like "page 3, line 24, missing 'an', insert comma" * Make changes (if needed). * Receive acceptance email/letter from Journal and place on website * Receive contract * Decline to sign contract and withdraw paper, with explanatory letter about publisher's practices (make this nice to the handling editor, they have done some work for you after all) * Update arXiv version with note 'accepted by Journal of A, but withdrawn by author for [personal reasons here], referee reports, acceptance letter and withdrawal letter available from [website]' * (Optional) - resubmit to an open access journal, together with supporting material (acceptance letter, referee reports, withdrawal letter) Now one has simultaneously: a paper accepted to the journal one 'must' publish in, and a letter to prove it, referee reports stating the quality of the work and a commitment to not use Journal of A. Now this is a perhaps a complete fantasy, and may not work in real life, and someone who needs publications to get a job, and timely ones at that, is not going to do this. Or perhaps one can use the scholastica platform or similar (http://www.scholasticahq.com/) to set up something similar to Rejecta Mathematica, but only accepting papers that have been *accepted* in other journals - Accepta Mathematica? - and then withdrawn by authors because of "moral outrage at publishers", "dislike of anti-open source journals" or such like. (The reasons are complete hyperbole: I just mean that the paper is not withdrawn for reasons of errors). Papers would need to be supplied along with acceptance letters and referee reports, along with original submission and final accepted copy. In any case, those with established careers with 'nothing to fear' should stop publishing in the journals in question so that their quality drops, and publish in other venues (open source/society- or university-published journals) so that their quality rises, and more junior mathematicians can safely jump ship. Humbly, David Roberts [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]