Template talk:Open access

Licensing issue
It is my understanding that linking the image to somewhere other than its description page without including an alternative link to the description page, as is currently being done here, violates the attribution requirements of the CC license. Cf. WT:Reference desk/Archive 85. --Cyber cobra (talk) 06:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It is possible to consider the images too simple to be copyrightable (pd-shape)... --Cyber cobra (talk) 07:01, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for flagging this. Not being able to have these simple icons point to the documentation on Open Access defeats the purpose of using them. Any restriction of use for icons that support openness doesn't make any sense to me. I will contact PLoS and ask them if they can relicense the OA logo as CC0 --DarTar (talk) 16:44, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * PLoS notified, waiting to hear from their Director of Publishing --DarTar (talk) 18:01, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Technically, pd-shape may be an option, but I think CC0 would be the cleaner way. If PLoS don't respond positively in time, we will have to create CC0 versions ourselves. -- -- Daniel Mietchen 17:19, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * User:Nina created the Open Access logo and I created the Closed Access logo. I think we are both happy to release it under CC0. I already changed the Closed Access logo (see edit comment). By the way there is also another closed access version, do you better like the gray icon? Here are all three variants: Open_Access_logo_PLoS_white.svg Closed Access logo white.svg Closed Access logo alternative.svg -- JakobVoss (talk) 18:57, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Jakob, I think the orange icon for closed access is a bit confusing indeed. Do you mind uploading a gray version derived from Closed Access logo white.svg? We were also considering separate SVG icons for gold vs. green open access although this is less urgent. --DarTar (talk) 21:27, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * oh and if possible the icons should have a transparent background --DarTar (talk) 21:29, 26 July 2011 (UTC)
 * A blog post (in German) by Jakob on the topic. -- -- Daniel Mietchen 15:33, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The gray version was already in the history of File:Closed Access logo white.svg, I just reverted it. Or do we need both versions? However I'd argue for using Closed Access logo alternative.svg because it also differs in shape. If you are color-blind or print it in b/w, you would not see the difference. -- JakobVoss (talk) 21:30, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The above icons are visually confusing with the yellow lock icon used for SSL-enabled links. Is there another approach?  GChriss &lt;always listening&gt;  &lt;c&gt; 21:44, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Not familiar with these. Can you give an example? -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 21:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
 * There are three variations: 1 2 and perhaps most problematically, 3. And then there's MediaWiki's default icon, displayed in this comment. GChriss &lt;always listening&gt; &lt;c&gt; 23:15, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

In Infobib and my blog Archivalia has been argued that grey is more appropriate for toll-access-publications --84.62.64.193 (talk) 15:45, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I chose the CC-BY license because that's the one PLoS used. I got PDF-files with the locket from PLoS and they said that the community can use it. I agree that also applies. --Nina (talk) 07:05, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * The reply from PLoS is in - they are going to re-release the logo under CC0 this fall, and we can use it without attribution from now on. -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 00:32, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Automation
Once the licensing aspects discussed above have been resolved, we will have to think about how to automate the OA flagging by way of this or a similar template. One approach that comes to mind is to create a template that (a) can be called by existing templates like Cite doi and citation and (b) checks for some measure of OA. One such measure could be whether the journal that the article is published in is listed at DOAJ as having received the SPARC Europe Seal. I am aware that this is not the most inclusive measure of OA (e.g. it ignores non-Gold Green OA as well as hybrid OA journals and non-CC-BY Gold journals) but for such a list of journals, it would be easily possible to use something like #switch to display the icon as a function of the journal's DOI pattern. Once that template is working and integrated with existing citation templates, the icons would appear on all relevant articles, without a need for further edits.

Another approach would be to use a bot to query Google Scholar, Mendeley or some other databases to return a measure of OA (preferably more inclusive than the above), and to add the relevant icon(s) to the citations of those articles, either by editing the articles directly, or by some interaction with a template of the kind described above.

Any ideas on how to move forward on this? -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 21:50, 14 August 2011 (UTC)


 * See also SoLo11 Hackathon suggestions. -- Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 18:24, 3 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I am interested in learning more about how this ought to work but I am not able to understand enough to know what I should think or what I should do to learn more. I understand that this is a proposal to tag OA articles with an image. Where are the discussions on how this works and what could happen next? What is the indicator for knowing that it time for this project to proceed?  Blue Rasberry    (talk)   19:27, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Hey everybody and Daniel Mietchen, I guess the following crude concept would work as automation. What do you think?


 * We should be able to gather data identifying open access journals (peer reviewed only, if possible) like you described above and maybe more to get finally the fraction of the doi that encode the journal: Example: http://search.crossref.org/?q=plos --> returns the doi 10.1371 ... for the PLoS Magazines

(Further links to work with optionally later:
 * http://search.crossref.org/?q=international&oa_status=DOAJ&type=Journal (search term required i think, maybe ok for testing, but gives the doi of "International Journal of Chemistry", while doaj isnt in this case )
 * Projects linked in: http://open-access.net/de_en/communication/open_access_projects/
 * (http://dispatch.opac.d-nb.de/DB=1.1/SET=2/TTL=1/LIZENZFREI_E_JOURNALS (only issn, with luck, it´s included in the doi
 * o.a. books /isbn: http://www.oapen.org/metadataexports?page=intro xml or csv export )


 * I guess we would be able to let a bot find the specific cite doi templates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cite_doi_templates by searching for the digits that encode the open access journals (i.e. 10.1371)


 * In the field "type" of the matching template(s) we would include -->, (I should talk to the cite journal guys if that should be implemented into the "subscription" field)


 * including would look like this in the references section:

I think, technically, there should be better methods. But where to ask for technical support? I would start asking at the cite journal and cite doi/ citation bot.

WP-Consensus? Much more important, how we make sure officially that people aren't against this "disturbing labeling" to this bigger extent? By a survey? I read that "Authors can request early-stage feedback at Wikipedia's village pump for idea incubation and from any relevant WikiProjects" (I know that the English Wikipedia(n's) tends to be more tolerant, but in the German WP some people expressed their strong dislike about this open access template and want to delete it)

UPDATE: Oh, now I found 2 things to consider..

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:OA-ness is kind of an automation, but authors need to be aware of this template and include this actively in every ref they write (at least temporarily in the preview) to see if its open access.

2)"Use of templates within the citation template, is generally discouraged as many of these templates will add a lot of extraneous HTML or CSS that will be rendered in the metadata." in the cite journal template. So I should ask them if they would like to implement it directly.. --Saimondo (talk) 17:50, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Just icon, or retain text?
So, now that the image is relicensed, we can link the icon directly to the Open access article as was originally intended. In light of this, should we still include the explanatory text in this template as well? --Cyber cobra (talk) 08:27, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * At the moment the tooltip=mouse over popup just displays "open access", I will link it to the article open access as Cybercobra suggested. With my other browsers/settings there a preview text of tha article apperaring. If that´s not the case in general I would include an explaining text "like open access - free to read", if no one opposes. Regards --Saimondo (talk) 16:58, 9 November 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't know, but in its current form, Closed access is extremely discreet in the context of a potentially long reference. I recommend using a more colorful/large icon, or to add text. --Chealer (talk) 22:33, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Date parameter?
Would it be worth adding a date parameter like the   templates have? It would look like this:  .

The purpose of this date would be much like |accessdate=, indicating when the reference was marked as open/closed access. I think this is especially useful in the case of the   template as I can readily envision the case where a paper was closed access but is now open access.

A better but less "standard" parameter name would be |asof=, i.e. "this paper was open/closed access as of X date". I don't see a particular reason for such a date to be displayed alongside the access icon, but in my opinion it would be a very clean design if it could be displayed as a tool-tip of the access icon. Wingman4l7 (talk) 07:41, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Articles where the abstract is free but the rest is not
Imagine that an article's abstract is freely available, but the article's main body costs money to purchase. If this is so, does it make sense for me to mark the ref with closed access even though the abstract is freely available? And if this is sensible, why is it sensible? Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 01:33, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello !
 * An article is considered to be designated closed access and not open access when its abstract is available but the article is behind a paywall. The main rationale for this is that "open access" is intended to be a defined term as enunciated by the Budapest, Bethesda, and Berlin documents. Guidance in those documents would designate the paper you describe as not open access.
 * Another rationale might be to consider advertisements for other media, like a movie preview. One can watch a free preview for a movie and still not have access to the rest of the movie. It is to be expected that advertisements are "free" to view, as they exist to persuade a consumer to spend money. An abstract is the same kind of ad if the paper is not free.
 * Do either of these explanations satisfy you? Thanks.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  01:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah. Each explanation makes sense. Thank you! —Unforgettableid (talk) 04:21, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I've edited the Paywall article, whose beginning is shown on hovering the mouse over the padlock icon of this template, so that the small part of the text shown on mouse hover both defines paywall as briefly as possible, and says that an abstract may be available free. Without the mention of the abstract readers may be put off following a reference. Also made a comment in Talk:Paywall. Pol098 (talk) 15:00, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Just libre, or both libre and gratis?
This template's documentation doesn't indicate whether it should be used only for sources that are OA-libre or if it should be used for sources accessible graits, regardless of license. If there is an official position, or is the template being used according to the judgement of individual editors? —Shelley V. Adams ‹blame credit › 16:45, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I am not sure what you mean, and I am lacking sources which describe what might be called non-libre open access. I think everyone who defines the term says that the libre part is essential to OA, even though in practice a lot of publishers call non-libre content OA. Based on reliable sources that are at hand, all OA content is defined libre, even though obviously lots of reliable sources which do not define the term use it in other ways.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  18:33, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * A very common example is the arxiv, which hosts preprints for large numbers of papers in physics that may also have been published in a non-open-access journal. The green open access" or "self-archiving".  It also includes a section describing the different definitions of gratis and libre OA.  If the purpose of the template is to indicate to editors that they can read the source without payment or subscription, then arxiv or gratis would be sufficient.  If the purpose is to indicate a license that allows some degree of reuse, or alignment to open access of ideals, I'm not sure this is relevant information that needs to be added to each source we cite.  --Amble (talk) 21:09, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The text at WikiProject Open Access/Signalling OA-ness indicates both: "The main purpose of such signalling would be to spare readers the disappointment of clicking through to the resource only to find out that they do not have access rights to read it. The scheme is also useful for Wikipedia editors who can see at a glance whether a given reference would be licensed in a way that allows for the images, media or even text to be reused in Wikipedia articles." This is unfortunate, because it means that we're trying to use a single indicator to communicate two different things that aren't necessarily related.  In physics at least, most papers can be read for free on the arxiv or elsewhere, but only a very small number have a license that would allow images and text to be directly reused on Wikipedia.  On the other hand, very old papers that are out of copyright may not be online at all, or may be behind a paywall, but could be freely reused by any one who has access to a copy.  Surely it would be better to separately flag whether sources are free-to-read, and whether they have a license compatible with reuse on Wikipedia. --Amble (talk) 21:22, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Symbol needs improving
The symbol identifying a source as open access is a tiny orange barely-open padlock (on my system at least). Unless there are conventions, or classes of readers who could be disadvantaged, I would suggest that the symbols for open/closed access (orange or grey padlock) are very poor, with open access worse. I would suggest, in order of preference:
 * Closed access: red closed padlock; black closed padlock
 * Open access: crossed-out closed padlock, very visibly open black padlock, green open padlock. The first two could be black or green. By "green" I do not necessarily mean the exact RGB colour, but anything that displays well, whether called green, lime, or whatever.

It isn't all that important for anyone who knows the symbols, but otherwise not good. Pol098 (talk) 13:57, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Visibility of these symbols and choosing the right symbols is something that would need to be sorted with user testing. I agree with you about the visibility and understandability problem, but sorting this out has proven to be complicated. Consider checking out WikiProject Open Access/Signalling OA-ness for a longer description of how this could work.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  18:04, 24 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for response. I'm glad to hear that this general topic seems to be recognised and in progress; I hadn't seen the page Signalling OA-ness discussion. I can quite understand that getting this sort of thing right can be complex, particularly where there are already recognised conventions. I think the issue here is the tiny size of the symbols; the barely-open padlock may be adequate in a larger size. Best wishes Pol098 (talk) 18:25, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * We could just make the icon bigger. It was originally 12 pixels wide, and it's now only 8.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 26 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Although I like the current symbol (it's good to use a standard image), it currently ends up looking subscript.Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
 * I suggest changing to use the  parameter for in-line images so that it looks tidier.Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
 * T.Shafee(Evo&#65120;Evo)talk 10:15, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
 * That looks better! I never noticed before.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  12:38, 5 October 2015 (UTC)
 * - I think I solved it in an ever better way, moving it up 2 pixels. I had actually entirely missed this discussion, but that might have been good or I would have chosen that solution. Carl Fredik   💌 📧 12:47, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry - not quite sure where this conversation is right now. Can you show before and after pictures?  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  13:42, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry - not quite sure where this conversation is right now. Can you show before and after pictures?  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  13:42, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Template clashing with citations?
Would someone be able to take a look at Alasdair Cochrane and see why this template is clashing with the citations? Josh Milburn (talk) 08:07, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * —, I think it was down to multiple templates setting different  values — which sort of "stacked". I've cleaned up the code a little bit in this template and it shouldn't be doing that anymore.  Carl Fredik   💌 📧 10:02, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the speedy response; that seems to have fixed it at my end! Josh Milburn (talk) 12:38, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

why is the lock orange?
It seems to me that orange is not the best color to convey the concept of 'open'. For the most part, I think that we live in a world where the gradations of good to bad, open to closed, safe to dangerous, are associated with a color scale of green to blue to yellow to orange to red. Should not open access be at the greener end of that scale?

At the moment there are a couple of conversations at Help talk:Citation Style 1 concerning open access links and subscription. In each, the topic of lock icons has been mentioned. It would seem to me that the various users of the lock images, this template,, cs1|2, (are there any others?), should all harmonize on a series of lock colors, ,  and styling so that wherever and however they are used throughout en.wiki, the various colors have the same meaning regardless of the mechanism used to display the lock. Context, of course, may dictate that we can't hold to such universal definitions. But we can try.

As a start, how about this list of uses: The above list needs color definitions, better descriptions of when the use of each color is appropriate, and no doubt other stuff.
 * green – open access (replaces current orange icon; the open access rules apply)
 * color(s) tbd – limited free access (n number of free reads before subscription is required, for example; others?)
 * color(s) tbd – subscription required (payway)
 * color(s) tbd – registration required
 * red – closed access; alt color for the gray closed lock (for cases where the application of money is not enough to gain access?)

Opinions?

—Trappist the monk (talk) 12:36, 23 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I think the consensus was that the orange lock refers to proper open access (openly licensed content), mostly because it has been used with this meaning for a long time in the open access movement. The green lock would refer to poor man's open access, free to read but not necessarily openly licensed. It's true that if we wanted to keep the red-orange-green order, it would be probably better to swap the colors (I bet open access advocates would be very angry though). But I have no strong opinion about that. I agree that the closed access logo should be more visible than a gray lock (red or black could do). − Pintoch (talk) 13:58, 23 June 2016 (UTC)


 * I think for the purpose of, it's best to keep WP:KISS in mind. Orange and grey are almost non-noticeable. Green + open lock = Free to read / Red + closed lock = Not-free to read. We should also remember that this isn't about licensing, but about access. (It would also mean changing Open access and Closed access.) Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 14:51, 23 June 2016 (UTC)


 * There are two uses for the icons, citations and journals. The 'orange' represents the 'open access gold', this is a publisher who gives open access. 'Open access green' is self published open access work. For citations, access is the main interest (open or closed). For journals the terms of open access is also of interest. I favour either open or closed for citations, but a full range of icons for journals.


 * {| class="wikitable"

! Access/terms type !! meaning !! Journal icon's (current) !! Citation's (current)
 * Open access (gold) || open access via publisher || ||
 * Open access (green) || open access self published || ||
 * Hybrid || author pays journal for open access || ||  /
 * Time delay || article open access after a time period || no icon || /  (could auto switch)
 * Hybrid Time delay || both systems || no icon || /  (could auto switch)
 * Closed / paywall || typically requires payment for access || ||
 * }
 * Time delay || article open access after a time period || no icon || /  (could auto switch)
 * Hybrid Time delay || both systems || no icon || /  (could auto switch)
 * Closed / paywall || typically requires payment for access || ||
 * }
 * Closed / paywall || typically requires payment for access || ||
 * }


 * The lock icon design is from PLoS (used with permission), and they have a detail guide to the various shades of access, How open is it?. Jonpatterns (talk) 18:03, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Regarding the colors being non-noticeable, not sure the symbols should 'jump out'. Having red symbols may look like an error.Jonpatterns (talk) 18:10, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * The comments noting that the locks should be more visible caused me to wonder about color contrast and accessibility. I googled 'accessibility contrast checker' and the results page gave me several online test pages.  According to those test pages, the orange lock color (f68212) has a contrast value of about 2.6:1 against a white (#ffffff) background.  This value, according to the these testers, fails all of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.  The minimum contrast is 4.5:1 according to the WCAG2.0 guideline, which see.  It is worse (2.5:1) against a wikitable's background color (#f9f9f9).
 * Similarly, the gray closed lock color (#848484) has a contrast ratio of 3.7:1 which is good enough for AA class at 14pt (bold) or 18pt (normal) text where the threshold for that qualification is 3:1. But, because the lock is an image and could be considered part of an  user interface, the 4.5:1 standard probably applies.  Of course it too, is worse against a wikitable background (3.6:1).
 * The green lock (#008400) has color contrasts of 4.9:1 and 4.6:1.
 * It would seem that those editors who noted visibility issues with the current lock colors are supported by these data.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:20, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Alt design with darker colors and more open lock.
 * It would seem that those editors who noted visibility issues with the current lock colors are supported by these data.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 20:20, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Alt design with darker colors and more open lock.

! x18px !! x14px |||
 * Open_Access_logo_gold_alt2.svg|| Open_Access_logo_gold_alt2.svg
 * Open_Access_logo_gold_alt2.svg|| Open_Access_logo_gold_alt2.svg
 * Closed_Access_logo_dark.svg|| Closed_Access_logo_dark.svg
 * }
 * Jonpatterns (talk) 21:33, 23 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I moved your signature to below your table.
 * The shape of the alt open lock is arguably better than the current shape. Not so sure about the colors though.  The pale fill doesn't contribute much and perhaps at these small sizes makes the body of the lock look out of focus.  The new orange, #ce6909, has a contrast ratio of 3.7:1 against white and 3.5:1 in a table.  While the locks aren't text, where they will be used in text (contemplated for cs1|2) or appended to text, I think that these should be treated as text so the Incidental clause of WCAG2.0 §1.43 would not apply.
 * I have read the how open is it? document. I have no data to support this but, of the five columns in the table at page 2, (reader rights, reuse rights, copyrights, author posting rights, automatic posting, machine readability), for our audience, reader rights is what matters most.  I would argue that only a very few of our readers will be concerned with reuse rights. The other categories apply primarily to authors and publishers.  I would also argue that most readers will have no idea what is meant by 'open access', will associate a warm color to a warning or restriction and so skip a free-to-read link when it is marked with a warm colored lock.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:31, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm neutral on whether to use green or gold for citations, but for journals I prefer keeping the distinction between open access gold and open access green.Jonpatterns (talk) 14:06, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * for journals I prefer keeping the distinction ... Why?  Does your preference benefit readers (the primary consumers of Wikipedia articles) in a way that I don't understand?  Please explain.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:26, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Here is an example of using icons for a journal list List of Cambridge University Press journals. The benefit is that readers can quickly identify the open access policy of the journal. Open access green has a different meaning to open access gold, using a green logo for gold access would be confusing. The viability of the logo can be improve via better design.Jonpatterns (talk) 14:56, 24 June 2016 (UTC)
 * That is the purported benefit of any icon, is it not? to give the reader a simple symbol that conveys a meaning that would otherwise require more than a word or two to describe. The locks in that table could just as easily have been green, yellow, and red blobs.  The untrained reader would still need to float a mouse cursor over the blob to read the alt text to discover what is meant by the symbol.  Of course, if the green, yellow, red, blobs follow the color conventions that I described earlier in this discussion, the reader might not need to read the blob's alt text because the color is sufficient to convey the meaning.  (In reality, it is more complex than that.  Each color should have a distinct shape so that readers with abnormal color sight can make the distinction as easily as readers with normal color sight.)
 * While not a scientific test, I looked at the websites of the first several journals listed at List of open-access journals (all of agriculture, astronomy, and biology) to see if and how they used an orange icon or image. The orange icon doesn't seem to have been adopted wholesale.  There are instances where the shape of the orange icon is used with a different color but even that is uncommon. Interestingly, only one of the PLOS journals used the orange lock and that apparently as a filler image because they didn't have anything better.
 * I guess I'm not persuaded that your answer to my question answers my question. I do agree that the viability of the logo can be [improved] via better design.  Choosing better colors is better design.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:24, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Its not better design if the color is misleading. How would propose to easily distinguish between open access gold, open access green, hybrid etc. for journals. I'm fine with just green being used for citations. Could you link to the examples you mentioned, I could not see any images on List of open access journals, which PLOS journal are you referring too? Jonpatterns (talk) 12:36, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Orange misleads because readers throughout their lives have been trained to think that orange, in the context of a signal, is a warning. That those who thought it was a good idea to equate orange to gold and to mix color metaphors (gold from gold-silver-bronze and green from green-yellow-red) clearly indicates to me that they were not thinking about design and users.  Because of their failure to do that thinking, we are left to pick up the pieces.
 * Answering the question of how to easily distinguish between open access gold, open access green, hybrid etc is part of the reason that I started this conversation. I don't have all of the answers.  Sometimes it takes multiple brains to solve a problem.  All that I'm getting from your arguments is a defense of the status quo regardless of its rightness or wrongness.  Holding fast to an idea that is problematic does not make for a better encyclopedia.
 * I did not say that there were lock icons at List of open access journals – that would be sort of pointless, né?. I was looking at the journals' websites linked from their Wikipedia articles.  The PLOS websites are the three listed at §Biology.  PLOS Computational Biology (website) is the one with the orange lock.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:18, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links. I'm not defending the status quo, just saying how it came about. I did explain the reasons for my thinking, we probably just disagree about what will mislead the reader. It may be best to just stick to deciding for citations here (which is what this template is about) and discuss journal options at access indicator.Jonpatterns (talk) 17:11, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * This page has 21 watchers, 11 of whom have visited recent edits.  has 4 watchers, all visited recent edits there.  When I created this conversation, I also invited editors at WikiProject Open (61/14) and HT:CS1 (210/111).  We are in a backwater here.  Fragmenting a conversation intended to harmonize use of the lock icon doesn't seem to me to be a good idea.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 10:35, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Answering the question of how to easily distinguish between open access gold, open access green, hybrid etc is part of the reason that I started this conversation. I don't have all of the answers.  Sometimes it takes multiple brains to solve a problem.  All that I'm getting from your arguments is a defense of the status quo regardless of its rightness or wrongness.  Holding fast to an idea that is problematic does not make for a better encyclopedia.
 * I did not say that there were lock icons at List of open access journals – that would be sort of pointless, né?. I was looking at the journals' websites linked from their Wikipedia articles.  The PLOS websites are the three listed at §Biology.  PLOS Computational Biology (website) is the one with the orange lock.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:18, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links. I'm not defending the status quo, just saying how it came about. I did explain the reasons for my thinking, we probably just disagree about what will mislead the reader. It may be best to just stick to deciding for citations here (which is what this template is about) and discuss journal options at access indicator.Jonpatterns (talk) 17:11, 25 June 2016 (UTC)
 * This page has 21 watchers, 11 of whom have visited recent edits.  has 4 watchers, all visited recent edits there.  When I created this conversation, I also invited editors at WikiProject Open (61/14) and HT:CS1 (210/111).  We are in a backwater here.  Fragmenting a conversation intended to harmonize use of the lock icon doesn't seem to me to be a good idea.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 10:35, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 10:35, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for so strongly advocating accessibility- a topic too often overlooked in these discussions. With regard to, "I would argue that only a very few of our readers will be concerned with reuse rights," I don't see the relevance of this. Whether the resources are freely reusable is an important factor in the value of the paper for readers, even if only a small proportion of them make use of it. Wikipedia and all the Wikimedia projects signal their free status at the top of the page: this signalling does not become less important when we are talking about linked resources, and it would be against the spirit of these sites to treat it as unimportant. There is a reason the Budapest declaration emphasises the free reuse of research outputs, not just public access to them. I like your improved lock icons, and I think it's important to signal reuse rights, but I don't see how it is useful to the reader to indicate whether a paper became open by green or gold routes. MartinPoulter (talk) 09:49, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I wasn't clear enough in what I meant by I would argue that only a very few of our readers will be concerned with reuse rights. I am not dismissing the importance of free reuse.  If editors wish to reuse something, they should go to the source to determine whether that something is free to reuse.  They should not depend on the statement of an editor here at Wikipedia who may or may not understand the differences meant by orange or by green or by orange with gray stripes.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 10:56, 16 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I am not sure how to participate in this conversation. The original proposal was, "Let's change colors", but the conversation is raising other issues. Regarding the original proposal, I oppose changing colors to a nonstandard scheme. Open access symbols have been developed by institutions external to Wikipedia and only adopted here. However, the points about accessibility are valid. I value the development and comments that come from the Wikimedia community more than I trust open access institutions to have done valid consultation with enough funding to reach the best conclusion for their design. Wikipedia could break from using the traditional design, but if so, then at least this would have to follow a thoughtful process with quality to professional standards so that we would have something better than the system which is already in use. I expect that the WMF would fund a project for accessibility in this space if someone applied to meta:Grants:Project for funds to facilitate pairing conversation here with major players in the off-wiki open access movement. It would not be easy, and I am not sure this is priority issue. There are side controversies, like for example, the importance of identifying and distinguishing green and gold access is much less important now because those concepts were developed before the advent of Creative Commons. It might not be worthwhile to invest more resources in distinguishing these when as more time passes it becomes less likely they will ever be adopted. I favor only noting "open access", which in Wikipedia means CC-By compatible without details of where it was published.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  14:19, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The original proposal was not a proposal, it was an invitation to discussion and offered a starting point for that discussion. Please do not make it out to be more than it is.
 * This editor has neither the time nor the skills to pursue a grants project.
 * I think we agree that identifying a linked source as 'free-to-read' is all that Wikipedia should be doing. We should not be attempting to distinguish free-to-reuse because that must be determined case-by-case according to the rules established by the publisher. I don't think that we should be involved in that.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 10:56, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * "Free to read" is not a concept which has an activist backing or a history of being demanded. Asking for anything other than open access signalling might mean establishing a new social movement, which seems unlikely now but with technology changes social participation may be less required in the future.
 * It would be nice to tag content which is free to read. meta:Wikicite would include some notation for this, and is my best guess for where development for signalling either open access of paywalls will happen.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  11:56, 16 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The concept of 'free-to-read' does not originate with me. The orange lock icon has included the phrase in it's alt text since .  I do not see any reason to give up on this topic here since meta:Wikicite looks to me to be in its infancy and apparently has not yet charted the path necessary to get to its destination.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:41, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The concept of 'free-to-read' does not originate with me. The orange lock icon has included the phrase in it's alt text since .  I do not see any reason to give up on this topic here since meta:Wikicite looks to me to be in its infancy and apparently has not yet charted the path necessary to get to its destination.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:41, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Unnecessary redirect
At present the Closed access template, on hover, shows the name of the Closed access article, followed by "Redirect to", and the name and initial text of the Paywall article. I'd suggest that the redirect be avoided: modify the template to show only "Paywall". Click the padlock on this reference to see what I mean. [Added]: now changed, nothing to see! That was quick.

Pol098 (talk) 15:04, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 21:46, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Sometimes full text is available
For many academic articles behind a paywall in the journal of original publication, a full-text source can be found, in line with the current academic trend towards open access. The best way to find full text is by a search for the full title, in quotes, perhaps with an author surname. There are some Web sites specifically to provide text for otherwise paywalled articles:, and some authors' and institutions' pages also provide the full article. I would suggest a link to the journal followed by Closed access, a space, [link to full-text.pdf in square brackets PDF] and the closing. E.g.

Pol098 (talk) 13:42, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Really the solution for a case like this is to have

Giving something like
 * Kanazawa, Satoshi (2005-08-21). "Big and tall parents have more sons: Further generalizations of the Trivers–Willard hypothesis" Lock-green.svg. Journal of Theoretical Biology. 235 (4): 583–590. Lock-red.svg.

There's an RFC about that at WP:VPPROP. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:58, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's better than what I suggested. I think this is useful information in the Talk page, the RFC might get missed. Would it be useful to add something to this effect in the template documentation itself (if there's consensus, which I'm not sure about)? Pol098 (talk) 23:08, 18 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Well right now that option is not supported. So the RFC needs to conclude (with consensus to allow non-free locks on identifiers / free locks on the url) before that can be done. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:31, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

RFCs
In case anyone came here looking for them (like me): czar 02:11, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_135
 * Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_135

Punctuation
Let's make the alt description compliant with WP:MOS (MOS:HYPHEN and MOS:DASH): "open access publication - free to read" → "open-access publication – free to read". — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 02:06, 25 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Good idea! I encourage you to do this. Afterwards, feel free to report to us that it's done. —Unforgettableid (talk) 15:23, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Libre vs. gratis, part two
Let me tell you about one problem.

The term "open access" is confusing nowadays. If an article is gratis but not libre, some call it "open access", but others call it "closed access".

Let's stop calling scholarly articles "open access" at all. The term is too ambiguous and confusing. Let's instead start using the terms "gratis" and "libre", instead.

OK. Good.

Now let me tell you about a second problem.

If a referenced article is gratis but not libre, some Wikipedians add open access, which produces an orange lock icon. Other Wikipedians add free access, which produces a green lock icon. This is silly. All Wikipedians should use the same template to mean the same thing.

To fix the second problem, I think we should do the following.


 * A) Rename open access to libre. This will automatically leave a redirect behind.
 * B) Rename free access to gratis. This will automatically leave a redirect behind.
 * C) Repoint open access from libre to gratis. Now all the non-libre links which were incorrectly marked as open access will get their orange lock icon changed to green. (All libre articles are also gratis. So it's not so bad for us to mistakenly say that a libre article is only gratis. But it's a lie for us to say that an article is libre if it's really just gratis.)
 * D) Update all the aforementioned templates' documentation. From now on, people should never add open access or free access to any reference. They should only ever add libre or gratis.

Agree? Disagree? Thoughts?

Regards, —Unforgettableid (talk) 11:03, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * The open access template was introduced before the access locks in CS1/2 citations, which should be preferred (if they are retained), because they indicate more clearly from which source the article can be obtained. Concerning the distinction between gratis and libre, I don't think it is worth conveying it with different icons: although it is an important difference for the OA movement, the distinction has not really made its way in the research community, never mind casual readers (which is why people just talk about "OA"). This issue has already been discussed at length for the design of CS1 icons (the RFCs about that are currently being closed). In these RFCs we did the mistake of proposing a scheme that was way too precise (closed access, partial access, free access, on URLs, identifiers that are always free, identifiers that are sometimes free…) which really impaired the proposal I think. No scheme will be precise enough to be perfectly accurate in all cases: we just need something simple, that everyone can understand. Some people still oppose the idea of tagging the accessibility level of sources in the first place… We need to be pragmatic, down to earth, otherwise proposals just get rejected and nothing happens. Sorry for being a bit bitter, this message is essentially a post-mortem of our efforts at CS1/2. − Pintoch (talk) 11:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Dear Do you mean the RFCs which are now archived at "Village pump (proposals)/Archive 135"? —Unforgettableid (talk) 11:57, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this topic made wonder about the (now archived) result of those RFCs. My guess is that there is no 'closing-in-progress'.  We should not discuss the cs1|2 RFCs here but should take up the subject at cs1.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:42, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * There is a problem with your proposal.  is already in use.


 * I dislike both of the terms 'gratis' and 'libre' because, to uninformed readers (the majority of Wikipedia readers) these terms are meaningless. Even when readers are aware that there is a distinction, it is easy to confuse these terms.  Your description of editors adding the 'wrong' template suggests that these templates are easily confused by those who should know better further suggesting that 'gratis' and 'libre' are poor choices for names.


 * Perhaps better names might be something descriptive like and  – though reusability is something determined between the author(s) and the publisher and may not be wholly free. And, do we really care about reuse?  At Wikipedia, references are used to support statements in our articles' text.  That a source may or may not be reusable outside of Wikipedia is irrelevant when it comes to verification.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:38, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * 1. libre is in use, but it's not[//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Libre] used in many places. If we want, maybe we can rename it out of our way.
 * 2. I was talking about readers, not editors [correction: editors, not readers]. You're talking about readers. We don't have to tell readers "gratis" or "libre". We can tell them "free". They can study up on our color-coding scheme if they want to know what's gratis and what's libre.
 * 3. Now I'll get back to the subject of editors. The reason why some editors are confused about when to use open access vs. free access is because the open access documentation doesn't provide any clarity, and because they don't know that free access exists.
 * 4. Libre is handy and useful. So, as the world's biggest libre encyclopedia, our editors should be in favor of the publication of libre research. We don't have to force our editors to think about reuse, but I suspect it'd probably be better if we'd encourage them to think about reuse. It won't cost them that much time or mental effort. Then again, maybe is correct that "we just need something simple". Maybe complexity will discourage editors and should be avoided. I'm undecided.
 * 5. Are you worried that even our editors will be confused about "gratis" vs. "libre"? (If so, maybe we should name our templates something other than gratis and libre. Maybe what you suggested, or maybe free access and libre access.) Please let me know.
 * —Unforgettableid (talk) 12:21, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * 1. Perhaps
 * 2. Readers is what Wikipedia is all about. Everything we do must be done in support of readers.  I read your initial post as being about editors.  A second read leaves me with the same impression.  It is editors whom you describe as using the terms 'open access' and 'closed access'; it is editors who apply the open access and free access templates; you use the pronoun 'us' which for readers of this page is most likely to be editors.
 * 3. If it's merely a documentation problem, fix the documentation, problem solved.
 * 4. I'm not undecided. As I stated before, I think that the terms 'gratis' and 'libre' were poorly chosen.  I agree with Editor Pintoch that simple is good.  I think it does not matter that Wikipedia is free to reuse when it comes to citing sources nor does it matter if those cited sources are free to reuse.  The reader who wishes to reuse a source must comply with the publisher's requirements for reuse; Wikipedia must not be part of that negotiation.
 * 5. I'm not worried about anything. Your initial post suggested that editors aren't using the plain English-labeled templates correctly now (perhaps because of inadequate documentation as you have suggested) so I think that using less-than-plain English labels won't be an improvement.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 13:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * 2. You are correct. My initial post was about editors, not readers. I've added some strikethrough to the mistaken part of my comment posted at 12:21.
 * 4. If I understand correctly, you believe that editors shouldn't distinguish between libre and gratis; and that we should always use the same template no matter whether a source is libre or gratis. Am I understanding you correctly?
 * Regards, —Unforgettableid (talk) 13:42, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * 2. You may want to revise the strikethrough (also )
 * 4. Yes.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:04, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Fixing the tag didn't fix the sentence.  I reverted you because it is inappropriate to edit another writer's posts.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:59, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I agree with Trappist that as far as the encyclopedia goes, we care about flagging things that benefit the reader first and foremost. This means the emphasis is on flagging free (gratis) material to let the reader know they can read the source and see for themselves that the source supports the material. Anything with access in the name is about if readers can or cannot freely access the source. We could on top of that, if the community wants, flag licensing (which is different than access) with a different parameter or template, which would append the terms of reuse (e.g. Public Domain, GPL, CC-BY, CC-BY-SA, etc...). But this information is of very little use to the typical reader, because the typical reader has questions like "Was Ted Kaczynski really convicted of being the Unabomber?" not "I'm looking for freely reusable news reports on the Unabomber." After all, sources are there to support WP:V, not WP:LIBRE. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:53, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Merging into
I've read through all of what you folks wrote in. It looks like the consensus is this: We probably shouldn't distinguish between gratis and libre at all. (But, if we do want to distinguish between gratis and libre, we should add two templates to each link: an access template, plus a separate licensing template.) [Edit: But see below.]

OK. Since that's the consensus, and since "open access" is nowadays such an ill-defined term, should we merge open access into free access?

It seems silly for us to have two different templates, with two different icons — each of which is sometimes used to denote links to gratis sources.

Regards, —Unforgettableid (talk) 15:19, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * They should be merged, yes, and updated to use the green open access lock. Likewise, closed access and should be updated to use the red closed access lock, and so on. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 15:43, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Hmm, four editors in that other discussion of which one mentions licencing. Given that limited participation, I don't think that the consensus you describe exists.  Whether or not to merge the two templates requires a broader discussion, perhaps at WikiProject Open Access and WikiProject Open as well as a TfD.  Creation of licencing templates is a topic for another discussion elsewhere.
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 15:47, 9 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Fair. I stand corrected. I revise my claim to say that, so far, the limited consensus seems to be that we probably shouldn't distinguish between gratis and libre at all. But the consensus could change as more people weigh in. Everyone is welcome to post notices on other talk pages inviting people to come and visit our discussion. I may not monitor our discussion so carefully; anyone else is welcome to start the actual TfD when they feel that it's time. —Unforgettableid (talk) 17:23, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Difference between this template and doi-access= parameter?
So cite journal has access level identifiers like the parameter free which indicate that the link offers a "free full text". How does that compare to this template? If that parameter is used, is this one needed? Even in the example given in this template's documentation, there's a green padlock next to the PMC ID that has the hovertext "freely available" while the open access icon has hovertext saying "open access publication - free to read". Opencooper (talk) 06:21, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The purpose of citations in a Wikipedia article is to identify the sources that support article statements. The access signal icons are used in cs1|2 templates (all, not just ) to identify those sources that an article reader may read for free; may have to register to read; may have to hand over cash to read.  The cs1|2 templates do not have a need for, and so do not support, the reusability aspects of open access.  Readers and editors wishing to reuse a source should consult with the publisher to determine the source's reusability status and not rely on the possibly correct or possibly incorrect placement of this template to indicate a source's open-access-ness.


 * A single OA template external to a cs1|2 template applies to which of the, sometimes many, url and identifier links? It is true that PMC is always free to read after a publisher-optional embargo period.  An accompanying doi in that same citation may never be free to read.  In cs1|2 templates, sources linked by identifiers that are not marked as free-to-read are presumed to require registration or payment because that is the usual case – linked citation titles are presumed to be free-to-read unless marked otherwise.


 * I suspect that this template in its current use-definition should go away. Consider the amount of effort expended by editors who keep the use of improperly licensed images within Wikipedia to a minimum.  A better use of this template may be to mark reused text from open-access documents (and so minimize copyright and plagiarism issues).  There may already be a template for this purpose in which case, I think that this template can probably go away.  Of course, there are editors who eschew cs1|2 templates so perhaps this template could be kept around for them.


 * And one last quibble with this template: the icon is orange. Who is it who thought that a good idea?
 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:02, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it's orange because the icon at WikiProject Open Access is orange, which doesn't make sense. – Brandon XLF  (talk) 01:18, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * In the open access movement this logo is normally orange - so open access advocates will recognize it as such. But I agree that for lay people, green probably conveys the idea better. − Pintoch (talk) 07:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Text
Currently the text of this template reads "open access publication – free to read" when you mouse over the orange lock. I think that's a definite understatement. That would be OK for free access, which uses it. Here we should have a better description or just remove the "– free to read" part as open access means so more than that. --Palosirkka (talk) 08:34, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. --Bsherr (talk) 17:44, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

A citation template parameter for open content licenses (CC BY)
I have proposed a related parameter for the -template for indicating open content licenses of studies. (Especially, or only, Wikimedia-compatible ones and mainly CC BY 4.0.)

Such tags would have many advantages for readers and editors − for instance, they can indicate that the source may have relevant freely licensed images which could be used by the reader or be uploaded (and possibly added to the article) by an editor (who reads the article or learns that the added source has this license due to Autofill).

References could be made to look like this via this parameter for example:

Text and images are available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Proposal here. Please comment there, not here.

--Prototyperspective (talk) 17:28, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Proposed change to protected template
Propose change from:
 * Open access now has
 * Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg

to:
 * Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
 * 0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 03:30, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. I don't see how this would be an improvement over linking to the top of the article.  – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:37, 12 February 2023 (UTC)