Comment by s1artibartfast
11 days ago
It seems like you are jumping between the reality you would like and the reality that exists.
It is fine to want for something to be different, but that doesn't change the facts of how they are.
It's fine to advocate future papers be made public. I think it is antisocial and delusional to say past papers belong to the public just because that's what you would have wanted. The word for this is expostfacto recontracting, and undermines just about any system of law where is used.
Last, there are lots of reasons to pay for research even if it is not made public. Free public access is often the least of those concerns. Especially so when 99% of researchers whom might make meaningful use of the publication already have access through a journal system.
To understand this better, consider private drug patents coming from Public Funding. The government might rightly calculate that it is in the public interest too help a for-profit company develop a cancer cure with grants, then have no cure at all.
> It seems like you are jumping between the reality you would like and the reality that exists.
No, you did that, by responding to my post where I said "should" as though I were trying to describe how things are instead of how they ought to be.
> I think it is antisocial and delusional to say past papers belong to the public just because that's what you would have wanted.
I didn't say that. You need to work on your reading comprehension.
> The word for this is expostfacto recontracting
No, the word for what you're doing is putting words in my mouth and attacking a straw man.
> there are lots of reasons to pay for research even if it is not made public.
Can you give some?
> Especially so when 99% of researchers whom might make meaningful use of the publication already have access through a journal system.
Which they then have to pay fees to, using more of our tax dollars, because of the sweetheart deals the government has given the journals.
Not only that, but researchers nowadays share copies of papers over the Internet routinely (for example, using sites like arxiv.org), so they don't even need journals to know what other researchers are doing. So even that rationale for paying the journals is now out of date.
> consider private drug patents coming from Public Funding
A patent requires revealing the information that the invention is based on, in exchange for the exclusive right to produce the item for some period of time. So I don't see how this is an argument for keeping publicly funded research behind a paywall.
> No, you did that, by responding to my post where I said "should" as though I were trying to describe how things are instead of how they ought to be.
I dont really want to get into a tit for tat, but for clarification, you said several times that the public had paid for the papers. Researchers were not paid to create open access papers. You even said it was criminal that they weren't.
> didn't say that. You need to work on your reading comprehension.
rude...
> Can you give some?
I gave a few. The government may want the technology in production and dont care at all about any public disclosure. all the researchers they care about will have journal access either way.
One I didn't mention is that researchers want the freedom to publish as they choose. The government is happy to trade this away as part of the grant process.
The point I was trying to illustrate is that there is no reason to think open access is a non-negotiable or top priority from the government (or public good) perspective. All things being equal, it is nice to have.
> You said several times that the public had paid for the papers. Researchers were not paid to create open access papers. You even said it was criminal that they weren't.
I had assumed that readers would be able to exercise intelligence and common sense to see that I was describing how things should be, not how they are. Evidently I assumed too much in your case.
> rude...
It is to laugh: you had no problem describing me as "antisocial" and "delusional", and now you're complaining that I am being rude?
I think I'm done here.