Talk:The Cost of Knowledge

Merge proposal
User:Guillaume2303 asserted here that this article was a POV fork of the article for Elsevier. I can start by saying that I assert that the article meets WP:GNG because it has received independent coverage in multiple reliable sources shown on the article, and even more sources confirming the same information are available. I do not think that all of this coverage should be on the Elsevier page because a lot of information is in the media about this but this large amount of content would not be appropriate to put on the Elsevier page. News about The Cost of Knowledge appears in newspapers of many languages, and there is even a Japanese Wikipedia article on it citing Japanese sources. What counterarguments exist for giving this topic its own page?  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   18:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Nobody has said that this does not meet GNG, otherwise I would have taken it to AfD. But not everyhting that meets GNG should have its own article. What little interesting there is to say about this boycott can be (and has been) said in the main article on Elsevier. When several editorial boards resigend and started new journals, there was widespread coverage of those events, too, so that also meets GNG. Are we now going to split that off as a separate article, too? Every speech that President Obama gives will be covered in multiple sources, does that mean we make articles on every single one of them? --Guillaume2303 (talk) 14:21, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Anything that meets WP:N and which contains content which is not duplicated in another article can have its own article. There is more information in this article than would be appropriate to put in the Elsevier article, including the external links which were not at all appropriate to include there. I am not sure which Wikipedia policy describes circumstances under which to merge a small notable article into a larger article. About those other events - if the coverage was persistent then I suppose that those things could get their own articles. This event has been in the news regularly for a month; I am not aware of any particular speech of Obama's which was covered repeatedly by different major sources and commentators over an extended period of time. Where do you want to go with this?  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   16:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * "and which contains content which is not duplicated in another article": Far as I can see, this is covered in Academic Spring(anybody ever hear again about that since the term was invented?) and in the Elsevier article. Presenting this (by now moribund) movement extensively in three different articles definitely seems overkill... --Randykitty (talk) 21:58, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I have put merge templates on both articles to alert other editors to this discussion. This article here just seems larger than what is already in the Elsevier article because it is wordier. Accomodating external links is not really a good rationale to have a separate article. As far as I can see, this boycott article does not give any info that is not yet present in the Elsevier article, has no real notability independent from Elsevier itself, and gives undue weight to this recent boycott. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:10, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Support the merge or oppose the merge?
This is just a poll to facilitate discussion and collect reasons for doing either.


 * Support I support merging this -- I agree that it is not independently notable. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose For now I oppose merging it, I think we should discuss it a bit more. a) I disagree think that it is independently notable (at least, in the mathematical community it already made a significant impact), and b) the boycott of Elsevier is only one side of a campaign for reducing scientific journal subscription prices (see below). Sasha (talk) 15:19, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If you disagree that it is independently notable, that would imply you think it doesn't deserve a separate article -- and therefore that it should be merged. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 15:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks :) multiple negation is too complicated for me, so early in the morning. Sasha (talk) 16:47, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Oppose I oppose a merger. The boycott is receiving international media coverage and has already had a financial impact on Elsevier (see my edit to the article). As such this event is notable on its own and deserves a standalone article. De728631 (talk) 18:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Support As with so many of this kind of initiatives, this one seems to be petering out. Growth in number of signatories is slowing down, no recent coverage any more. And although 6368 (the current count) may seem impressive, it's just a trickle in the greater scheme of things: cf. the numbers of editors, board members, and reviewers mentioned in the Elsevier article; or consider the fact that the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (just one specialty discipline among many) attracts about 35,000 researchers/year (and only a fraction of all neuroscientists are attending that meeting, of course). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:34, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Independent notability has been established through the many sources already cited. This article isn't a POV fork. It meets WP:GNG and represents the subject matter in its entirety without giving undue weight to the boycott on the Elsevier article. Gobonobo  + c 07:34, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose This is an important topic that has very much to do with academic publishing itself, and it should not be subsumed to any individual publisher's entry. Porsrch (talk) 07:05, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose Very notable, lots of media coverage. Looks like a watershed event/inflection point in academia. Dtessend (talk) 08:09, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose It's a significant subject in its own right and the subject of numerous articles in mainstream media. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MirkMeister (talk • contribs) 02:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oppose This is a movement deserving its own chronology, and I want to see this article kept as a separate entry in Wikipedia. HarTab (talk) 16:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment I must admit that I am surprised that so many new users find this discussion and use their first edits to participate in this discussion... --Guillaume2303 (talk) 16:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Signatories
Several thousand persons have been signatories to this project. Many of those signatories have notability and their own Wikipedia articles. Various sources say that there were 34 original signers at the project's release. I think that all 34 should be mentioned by name here. Beyond those, signatories who receive media coverage because of their signing the project ought to included in this article.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   18:28, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * That's a rather ridiculous attempt to beef up this stub. Notability is not inherited and signing this petition, barring other evidence, is just a minor blip in the biography of these people. I have removed the list. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You just removed this, a list of referenced links to the Wikipedia articles for signatories to the project. I would rather talk about Wikipedia policy than ridiculousness. I do not disagree that this event is a minor blip in the biographies of the signatories, but this article is not a biography of the signatories so I do not understanding your reasoning. Could you clarify? Also please explain how notinherited applies. I am neither suggesting that The Cost of Knowledge is notable for its signatories nor are the signatories notable for their participation in this project. Instead, the rationale for naming signatories in this article comes from media coverage naming specific individuals who have signed the project. The fact that most original organizers of this project have their own Wikipedia articles makes a list of their names more useful on Wikipedia, but a list is merited in any case only because of special media coverage of particular signatories. Thoughts?  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   19:17, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * There are thousands of signatories. The fact that some blog lists the 34 first ones does not justify inclusion of this rather arbitrary list. It's unencyclopedic, undue, and irrelevant. And however notable those people are, that doesn't make this article more important or notable. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 19:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree that the information published by reliable sources is undue or irrelevant and I think that the partial list covered in reliable sources is useful in this article. Here are two other projects which have lists of signatories, so there is a precedent for this - The Giving Pledge and It Gets Better Project. How would you feel about starting an RfC on the general case? As I said, I do not think that every signatory should be named. But some signatories are named in the media, and that makes them suitable for inclusion into the article. If you have a problem with any particular source then I would like to hear your thoughts on why it should not be used. I used several sources, and if sourcing is the issue then I can provide more. Would that satisfy your concern? If not, under what circumstances do you think a list merits inclusion here, as it does in other articles like the ones I just named?  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   19:34, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I think that a list of signatories is not acceptable under any circumstance. If a certain person has been cited by the media as having said something or other about this boycott, then that could be cited. Apart from that, with over 5000 signatures, any list is going to be arbitrary. But, by all means, feel free to start and AfC about this question. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 23:08, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The criteria of being recognized as notable by the media is the arbitrary standard which Wikipedia sets as inclusion criteria, so that is not a problem for me. I re-added the ones which did not come from the source you called "some blog", but that blog meets criteria of WP:RS and I still think the full 34 names ought to be listed. I do not want to start any broader discussion about lists because I like the precedent and do not want to change things. How do things look now?  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   00:34, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I might be misunderstanding you. Do you object to the names being mentioned, or do you object to them being in list format?  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   00:38, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * My opinion is that flowing prose is (as usual) preferable to a list. E.g. "... include A, B , ...". Sasha (talk) 02:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with Sasha, prose is almost always preferable to an (uninteresting) list. In addition, I don't think that this list is justified at all. There are thousands of signatories, singling out a few (even though they have been mentioned in some minor media) is rather capricious. It's not a notable even in their lives and it is not a notable event for the boycott. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 09:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I too agree about the inadvisability of including the list; there is already a good place for it, which is their own web site.  DGG ( talk ) 17:08, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am against the idea of including the names in the article. This is an online petition. Anyone could put down any name in it so the credibility is not very high unless there's another way of verifying that the signed individuals did it on their own and not of others. OhanaUnitedTalk page 04:27, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
 * secondary sources are provided for every one included in the article, so it is not such a problem. BTW, the site does verify the identity (via academic email) Sasha (talk) 05:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Broader context
I think the conflict between scientific publishers and the research community deserves an article, since it is far from being limited to relations with Elsevier (or to this particular declaration). Perhaps one can discuss all the issues that have appeared (cf. this), and provide more context for CoK. If this is reasonable, we can discuss how to name it and how to compose it in a reasonably neutral and sourced way. Sasha (talk) 20:04, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am not sure, but Open science might be the major article, what you are describing could be a subsection, and then when enough content exists that ought to be its own article. I am trying to sort through all this right now and could use some help.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   20:09, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Open access is the more appropriate general article; Open science covers many other things than publishing. At this point, this is only one of a number of initiatives over many years; if it proves to be the one that brings about the "tipping point", it will be more important. (for the term, see for example my own 2004 paper  in Serials Review )  The discussion of Elsevier's response is biased: the profit figure includes many lines besides scientific publishing, such as  legal publishing. Ref 8 should go to their own published source, preferably their annual report, not to a opinion article reporting it.  DGG ( talk ) 17:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I am only responding to one of your points at this time - I clarified reference 8, and later I will pull a number from their annual report.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   17:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I still am not responding to any other of your points yet, but I added the citation of Elsevier's annual report. It is unclear what the papers are reporting because it seems like there are technical terms for these things.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   17:15, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that "open access" is the more appropriate article to discuss this. It remains to be shown that OA publishing will, in the end, be cheaper for the academic community. In addition, OA is not without some downright predatory publishers itself. And even the respectable ones, like BioMedCentral, for example) are profit-based enterprises (note that BMC was bought by Springer, not directly a charity either). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 17:37, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

I just made Academic journal publishing reform. As Sasha said, there is a broader context and some of the background required to understand this campaign ought not be in this article. It is probably not right to include this in the articles on open access or open science because the talk about reform has arisen many times especially since about 1995. As Guillaume says, it is not certain whether OA or any other system will be dominate in the end, and the reforms proposed over the last 20-30 years include a range of ideas to both make new institutions and protect old institutions from change. I think that a reform article would be the best place to give readers an overview of all the ideas for reform which have been proposed or used, and all other articles which have a need to discuss the background of reform should link to that one. Thoughts?  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   15:24, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * there are more refs at the polymath site. Sasha (talk) 15:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Topology journal split
I have expanded Topology (journal), into including Journal of Topology in the same page. It is surely related to this CoK page, but I do not know how to connect them. Also, maybe Journal of Topology could be a separate page. Of the editors who resigned from Elsevier (their letter to Ross is referenced on the journal page), I found resigning editors Nigel Hitchin and (n.n. for now) having a page on this Wikipedia. Again, I do not know how to merge these issues. But I know they are related: Elsevier, Cost-of-Knowledge and the Topology split. -DePiep (talk) 00:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I made the connection by searching for "Cost of Knowledge" and "Topology", which turned up a Nature article saying that the Topology dispute was a precedent for the Cost of Knowledge. That same article also says that the PLoS thing is a precedent for this campaign, but I have not found a good source for that story. Also I cannot find a source for Hitchin's connection to anything. The way to make connections is to provide sources. Thanks for bringing attention to this. I will look again for more sources, but at least I started the section with this now. If you have more info then please share. Thanks a lot.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   02:15, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You are right: no source, no fact. I just added the main years. I think: 1. the split is well documented (see Topology (journal). 2: The then Topology editors' letter to Ross/Elsevier names some seven editors, of which I could find two in our English WP (Hitchin and --now-- n.n.). I could not find an Editors list of the current JoT, but for a 20 persons list. 3. The articles on T and JoT could be split, thought both will be stubs for now. That is all I know, but I will follow the issue. -DePiep (talk) 02:27, 26 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but I think that this article continues to deteriorate. If it is about the CoK boycott, then a brief mention of the T/JoT controversy would suffice. If it is about every controversy Elsevier was ever involved in, then the title should be changed and the article re-written from that standpoint. Both T and JoT are notable journals and have their own article (although JoT by now merits its own, as it meets WP:NJournals beyond the single event that we're talking about here). The events surrounding them are already covered there AND in the Elsevier article and re-hashing them yet again here really starts to become undue. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 11:34, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * You might have missed the line with two sources that states how the Topology issue is seen as a direct precedent for the CoK boycott. This article is not about every controversy Elsevier has ever been involved in but about The Cost of Knowledge and its history. I find the inclusion of the Topology matter justified because it can directly be linked to the current boycott. De728631 (talk) 17:45, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I didn't miss them. They would at most justify a single line here, not a whole section. Of course, this whole article belongs in Elsevier, as a single paragraph. That way, the T/JoT controversy and the CoK event could be tied in with the rest of that article in an encyclopedic (and neutral) manner. As it is, this POV fork is gicing way too much weight to these events. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 18:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
 * This campaign has continually been featured in reliable third party sources for several months, and notably the Research Works Act was withdrawn with the Cost of Knowledge being reported as a player in its opposition campaign. I would like to propose closure to the discussion that this article be merged with the Elsevier article on account of this article being independently featured in multiple reliable sources over a period of time and outside the context of what would be appropriate to incorporate into the Elsevier article.   Blue Rasberry    (talk)   01:24, 10 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Not sure why the preceding note was posted in this section, but for what it is worth, I support closing the merge discussion. As so often, recentism carries the day. A year from now, when most probably hardly anybody will remember this any more, we can revisit the issue. --Guillaume2303 (talk) 08:09, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

reaction from elsevier
Perhaps we should mention this too. Sasha (talk) 16:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
 * done (though it might be worth to add the comments of Gowers too). Sasha (talk) 00:29, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Links to add to article
This page on the Polymath Wiki contains a wealth of resources for the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wer900 (talk • contribs) 02:58, May 5, 2012
 * I added the link. In the future, feel free to be bold and add it yourself.  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   14:24, 5 May 2012 (UTC)‎

Article mentioned in Signpost
The Wikipedia Signpost just posted an article which describes how The Cost of Knowledge and related movements affect Wikipedia. See Wikipedia_Signpost/2012-05-14/Special_report.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   14:01, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect assertions
Some assertions made in the article are incorrect and not supported by their sources. One example is the blanket statement that "all researchers became expected to give the publishers digital copies of their work which needed no further processing", sourced to a paleontology blog. Leaving aside the question of whether that blog constitutes a reliable source, I have two problems here: 1/ I cannot find support in the blog for this (it mentions researchers in physics and mathematics, but nothing like this sweeping statement) and 2/ anybody who has submitted a paper to a journal in the life sciences in the last, say, five years will know that this is completely incorrect. Submitted manuscripts don't even resemble the resulting PDFs (compare manuscripts deposited in PubMed Central with the final versions on the journal websites) and, depending on the journal, significant copy-editing is still being done (especially in higher-profile journals, such as Elsevier's Trends journals). I know from experience that Wiley-Blackwell desk editors actually check references against their PubMed entires). I know it is fashionable to bash publishers and to push OA, but we have to remain objective here and base what we write on good sources. As an aside about us poor academics having to work for nothing, I don't know of any OA journal that pays its editors, whereas all editors-in-chief of Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell journals (and, presumably, also of the other large publishers, receive an honorarium for their efforts (at least in the life sciences). --Randykitty (talk) 11:05, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Out of date article?
The article seems to finish with 2012 references to activity - is this an ongoing campaign, or has it died away? thanks! --mgaved (talk) 15:40, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

In 2018, just 424 people signed the Cost of Knowledge boycott, bringing it to a grand total in December of 17,338. During the same year, researchers submitted 1.8m articles to Elsevier, up 12% from 1.6m in 2017. https://www.relx.com/~/media/Files/R/RELX-Group/documents/investors/relx-overview-march.pdf page 27. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Francophile9 (talk • contribs) 17:16, 26 March 2019 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks for the data about the boycott still drawing recruits. It is not clear to me whether or how this article should be updated, though. Sylvain Ribault (talk) 16:20, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

There's been some discussion about whether this page is necessary, as the Cost of Knowledge campaign has failed. It's no longer possible to use the website which is no longer updated. (User talk:Fracophile9) 19:54 09 December 2020 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Francophile9 (talk • contribs) 19:56, 9 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't understand the discussion of removing the wikipedia page, as it is a historical movement. The significance of it can be supported by the famous blog from Fields medalist, Terrence Tao. As an academic in mathmatics, I do not agree that the campaign "has failed". Most, if not all, higher epsilon of academics have stopped publishing in Elsevier exclusively, i.e. with no pre-print accessing. Are you attempting to cover this part of the chapter of Elsevier alleged hegemony? Your last two messages indicate strong vested interests in favour of Elsevier. 2001:7C0:2900:8050:6D88:6DF9:EF66:EB23 (talk) 13:00, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * It would appear that Francophile9 works or has worked for Elsevier company. As indicated in Talk:Elsevier 2001:7C0:2900:8050:6D88:6DF9:EF66:EB23 (talk) 13:13, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Statement from a publisher
You just deleted this citation for being a self published source in a blog.

By the about page on the website they seem to be an established publisher with some well known mainstream works and an established editorial process. To me this website and the cited post in particular appears to meet a standard above WP:BLOG as this publisher does seem to have expertise in academic publishing practice.

Can you say more about reliability problems you see?  Blue Rasberry  (talk)  23:32, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The publisher started as Mobylives BLOG. While it's on the publisher's site, it's more of a chit chat blog that talks about happenings rather than about itself. So, it's not that much different from some random person's blog and its use should be avoided whenever. These blogs seem to reflect more of the blog opinions of the person posting it. In any case, the purpose of this citation was to confirm Juan Manfredi was indeed one of the signatories and the alternative source I used works out better as its going to the source. This should resolve the problem. Graywalls (talk) 23:59, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

The website blog posts are likely the posting author's direct comments that haven't gone through normal editorial process. The article in question would be Dennis Johnson. It's probably one of blog posts like this one: https://www.mhpbooks.com/a-message-from-melville-house/. I would look at the same way about general blog about the auto industry posted on a dealership website. When better sources are available, WP:SPS should be avoided. If I see something about so and so trending thing according to (another source) on a dealership website, then citing THAT source is preferred to citing the dealership page. Graywalls (talk) 00:12, 8 September 2020 (UTC)