From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2019 10:02:49 +0100

I know that this has moved on but I do want to contribute my own hobby
horse. Please forgive me.  To my mind what is even more significant is the
fact that Smits did not consult the representative bodies for researchers:
learned societies and associations. He did not. He admitted as much at APE
earlier this year. They are quite easy to find. Most disciplines have a
European level body usually representing national entities. Most of them
also have publishing arms.



Anthony





From: "Jan Erik Frantsvåg" <[log in to unmask]>

Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2019 12:52:30 +0000

My reading is that this is targeted at creating distrust of the process by
implying collaboration beyond what is acceptable, between Smits and
Frontiers. I notice, following the links in Rick Anderson’s post following
yours, a lot of “seems” that indicate this is – presently – just
speculation.



A survey of all communication between Smits and other central Plan S
people, and publishers, would be more interesting. But it may not show
anything making blogging worthwhile? Were Elsevier, Springer/BMC, PLOS,
MDPI, Hindawi and other larger publishers really left out of the
conversation – against their will?



To me, the major problem with Plan S is that Smits et al. obviously has a
view of scholarly publishing as being done nearly solely by major
commercial companies, forgetting all the small-scale publishing being done
– OA or TA. The final requirements, fortunately, took into account some of
the criticism made. But the small and/or non-commercial publishers of OA
journals will still face problems, so will current TA publishers.



So, yes, more consolidation will probably be the result. If that means
making the bigger bigger, that is lamentable. But if it means making the
smaller less small, I think it could be a good thing.



Jan Erik Frantsvåg



*[SNIP]*