From: Ken Masters <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2013 12:11:04 +0400

Hi All

"The point is that lower editorial standards are part of the basic
architecture of Gold OA."

Joe, I wonder if you've really thought through that entire statement.
When you apply this to real-world examples, it doesn't add up, and you
may wish to re-consider it.  Here are some examples:

- Several commercial publishers are now offering individual articles
as open access, essentially Gold OA.  If your statement is true, then
it means that those articles have a lower editorial quality than those
for which readers are charged.  If true, this would have important
implications for researchers everywhere.

- For promotional reasons, an article that I wrote for a non-open
access journal was temporarily made open access.  If your statement is
true, then it means that, on that article, the editorial standard were
high, then lowered for three months, then suddenly increased again.
That does not seem possible.

- My journal is gold open access.  If your statement is true, then, if
I close it off, and start to charge for access, editorial standards
will automatically increase.  I don't quite see how the one would
follow from the other - if I were intending to cheat people, then
charging for access would simply make my cheating financially
profitable.

Yes, these statements are strange, and I'm sure (I hope, that is)
that's not what you intended, but, when your statement is applied,
that's exactly what one gets.

Whether intended or not, your statement is really an echo of the early
statements made by publishers who felt themselves under siege from OA,
especially Gold OA, that OA means no peer review, and therefore an
inferior product.  This is a position taken by the commercial
for-profit publishers as a solution to their fundamental problem:: how
do you charge for a product when the same product is available free of
charge?   The only solution is to convince the customer that it is not
the same product, that OA is inferior, and that this inferiority is
built into the fundamental nature of OA.  By linking Gold OA, in its
"basic architecture" to lower editorial standards, your argument,
inadvertently or not, feeds into that position.

Regards

Ken

Dr. Ken Masters
Asst. Professor: Medical Informatics
Medical Education Unit
College of Medicine & Health Sciences
Sultan Qaboos University
Sultanate of Oman
E-i-C: The Internet Journal of Medical Education


On 1 March 2013 03:05, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 07:54:08 -0500
>
> I think that many of the commenters on this thread are missing the
> point. The point is not that mistakes happen.  The point is not that
> you can find mistakes even in traditionally published work.  And the
> point is not that you can find errors in Gold OA publications (as I
> did).  The point is that lower editorial standards are part of the
> basic architecture of Gold OA.  That's a fundamental shift.  We don't
> know where it will lead, but when you build a road, don't you get the
> urge to ask where you are driving?
>
> Joe Esposito