COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

First the Elsevier policy, then the incoherence. The policy:

--A paper may be posted to the author's Web site but may not be updated to include the results of refereeing and editing, which "reflects the value we have added in the publication process and that the textual integrity of this final paper is best preserved by reference to the published article."--

Now the incoherence.

(1) I write a paper. It consists of the following:

"The ratiometer reading for Clintonite-21 it 4.072."

(2) I submit it to the (top) Journal of Ratiometry for peer review, and simultaneously archive it on my home-server and xxx.

(3) JoR sends it to referees, who reply "brilliant finding, but failed to make the Starrken correction: the reading should be 3.972."

(3) I revise and resubmit the paper, which is now:

"The Starrken-corrected reading for Clintonite-21 it 3.972."

(4) The paper is now accepted and edited and takes the final form:

"The Starrken-corrected reading for Clintonite-21 is 3.972."

(5) The paper goes to press.

According to Elsevier policy, it is in something's/someone's interest that my home-server and xxx either contain

"The ratiometer reading for Clintonite-21 it 4.072."

or nothing at all.

Do I need to spell out the incoherence, tortuousness, ludicrousness and blatant conflict of interest coursing through all this more explicitly?

Is it coherent to declare that "you may publicly archive your work, but not the correct, final version?" (Will you shoot me if I just fix the "it"?)

Is there an apter word than "tortuous" to describe the attempt to justify this edict as being in the service of "preserving textual integrity"?

Does "ludicrous" not quite capture portraying such a self-serving constraint as "adding value"?

Is the conflict of interest with which this is all but exploding blatant only to my ears?

And here is the last step of the reductio ad absurdum: Both the author and the referees have "added their value" to the product for absolutely nothing, not a penny!

It remains only to point out that all these unflattering adjectives of mine are justified only in the case of the refereed journal literature in the online-only era, where true-page costs are potentially low enough to be covered by means other than the access-blockage (S/SL/PPV) that these self-serving injunctions are designed to preserve, at whatever cost to the interests of the author, the reader, and learned inquiry itself.

They do not apply to the preponderance of the written corpus, where the author writes for royalty or fee, and makes common cause with his publisher in seeking to block access to their joint product to any who have not paid the toll.

http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/subvert.html

-- Stevan Harnad, Professor of Cognitive Science, Southampton University (posted 9/22, 5:50 p.m., E.D.T.)

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