6 ms·

You forget the editorial boards. They can mass resign, start their own journal, and ask that this successor be considered the legitimate heir. But editorial boa

You forget the editorial boards. They can mass resign, start their own journal, and ask that this successor be considered the legitimate heir. But editorial boards don't do that, and on the rare occasions they do, academics keep submitting to the old journal. Because, again, these folks don't care if anyone can read their research outside of colleagues who might cite them.

larsiusprime 5y ago
How is this different than any other coordination problem?
- civilized 5y ago
  It's not a coordination problem, it's an apathy problem. Boards that care can and do succeed in carrying out precisely the plan I just laid out. See for example https://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/ https://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-...
  - solveit 5y ago
    I see a bunch of people who spent a lot of time and effort for collective well-being at personal cost. This is a textbook coordination problem.
kristjansson 5y ago
This has actually succeeded before though. Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) is one of the premier journals in its field, is open access, and was formed by the mass resignation of editorial board of 'Machine Learning'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Machine_Learning_Research#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Machine_Learning_Re...
- intuitionist 5y ago
  Yes, and ‘Machine Learning’ is still being published, as is virtually every other journal of note that’s seen a mass editorial resignation. Maybe this strategy will work in the long run—if all the high-prestige journals are open access the publishers may wither and die—but so far Springer and Elsevier and the others make their money either way.
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    JMLR has a far higher impact factor than "Machine Learning". The for-profit publishers are welcome to print whatever they want, forever. They even publish "hollow" journals that exist purely as spoilers. You're mistaken if you believe they "make their money either way" they need subscribers, and it's increasingly unattractive to subscribe to second rate journals like "Machine Learning".
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      IIRC, the way they defeat this is by offering discounts on subscriptions to large groups of journals, rather than to individual titles. If you're going to have to buy the package anyway, any money that is spent on journals not in the package is an extra expense that will have to be individually justified.
- mananaysiempre 5y ago
  There’s a number of these stories, such as the former board of (now-dead) Journal of Algorithms founding the ACM Transactions of Algorithms and the former board of (now-dead) Topology founding the Journal of Topology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Resignation_of_editorial_boards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Resignation_of_editor...
  - kristjansson 5y ago
    > In 2003, the entire editorial board of the Journal of Algorithms resigned ... at the suggestion of Journal of Algorithms founder Donald Knuth That's a great detail for that story.
canjobear 5y ago
In the two cases adjacent to my field where this happened, the only people who kept submitting to the old journal were people who were clueless about the whole situation.
nuerow 5y ago
> You forget the editorial boards. They can mass resign, start their own journal, and ask that this successor be considered the legitimate heir. That would actually be completely irrelevant. Performance evaluation in academia is tied to the ability to post X papers in well respected established publications with a high impact factor. This requirement is generally imposed by legislation and regulation. Thus what matters is a publication's impact factor, it's reputation, and whether they are already in the acceptable list or not. If a mass protest led an entire editorial board to leave an established high-impact factor journal to start their own journal from scratch, said new journal would fail to meet any of the criteria that makes a journal an acceptable publication. > Because, again, these folks don't care if anyone can read their research outside of colleagues who might cite them. Thus assertion is also wrong. There are researchers who put together their own journals and use them to circle-jerk their way into relevance. This has been happening for years, and I even know of a case where said researcher even ties his papers to his own congress. However, these journals do tend to have a piss-poor impact factor, thus they don't count for performance reviews.
- rwl 5y ago
  > Thus what matters is a publication's impact factor, its reputation, and whether they are already in the acceptable list or not. This makes me wonder if there's room for a kind of legal hack that could carry these things over to a new journal. A journal's reputation is essentially tied to its name; and the name is what goes on people's CVs and on the lists of approved journals and so on. It seems like the name is really the only asset of a journal that could not very quickly be duplicated elsewhere if the editorial board decides to move together. I assume these names are protected by trademark law and that the publishers will fight to the death to protect them. But in the scenario where the editorial board jumps ship, is there some kind of legal argument they could use to either (a) effectively steal the name from the publisher or (b) piggyback on the name and reputation of the old journal, for example by naming the new journal "The Journal Formerly Known As X", so that it's clear to everyone that this is the journal X in all but name, and thus should be treated like X for the purpose of performance reviews etc.? Anyone know how far an editorial board could go in this direction, if they made up their minds to do so?
ketzu 5y ago
> Because, again, these folks don't care if anyone can read their research outside of colleagues who might cite them. Many researchers do care, hence they publish on their own website, arxiv etc., too. But they do care about future funding, their career, recognition and self validation, too.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sieste 5y ago
Serving on an editorial board for a prestigious journal is a career stepping stone just like publishing in that journal is a stepping stone earlier in your career. Asking the editorial board to resign has similar problems as telling PhD students to simply not publish in those journals.

larsiusprime 5y ago

How is this different than any other coordination problem?

civilized 5y ago
It's not a coordination problem, it's an apathy problem. Boards that care can and do succeed in carrying out precisely the plan I just laid out. See for example https://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/ https://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-...
- solveit 5y ago
  I see a bunch of people who spent a lot of time and effort for collective well-being at personal cost. This is a textbook coordination problem.

kristjansson 5y ago

This has actually succeeded before though. Journal of Machine Learning Research (JMLR) is one of the premier journals in its field, is open access, and was formed by the mass resignation of editorial board of 'Machine Learning'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Machine_Learning_Research#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Machine_Learning_Re...

intuitionist 5y ago
Yes, and ‘Machine Learning’ is still being published, as is virtually every other journal of note that’s seen a mass editorial resignation. Maybe this strategy will work in the long run—if all the high-prestige journals are open access the publishers may wither and die—but so far Springer and Elsevier and the others make their money either way.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  JMLR has a far higher impact factor than "Machine Learning". The for-profit publishers are welcome to print whatever they want, forever. They even publish "hollow" journals that exist purely as spoilers. You're mistaken if you believe they "make their money either way" they need subscribers, and it's increasingly unattractive to subscribe to second rate journals like "Machine Learning".
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    IIRC, the way they defeat this is by offering discounts on subscriptions to large groups of journals, rather than to individual titles. If you're going to have to buy the package anyway, any money that is spent on journals not in the package is an extra expense that will have to be individually justified.
mananaysiempre 5y ago
There’s a number of these stories, such as the former board of (now-dead) Journal of Algorithms founding the ACM Transactions of Algorithms and the former board of (now-dead) Topology founding the Journal of Topology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Resignation_of_editorial_boards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Resignation_of_editor...
- kristjansson 5y ago
  > In 2003, the entire editorial board of the Journal of Algorithms resigned ... at the suggestion of Journal of Algorithms founder Donald Knuth That's a great detail for that story.

canjobear 5y ago

In the two cases adjacent to my field where this happened, the only people who kept submitting to the old journal were people who were clueless about the whole situation.

nuerow 5y ago

> You forget the editorial boards. They can mass resign, start their own journal, and ask that this successor be considered the legitimate heir. That would actually be completely irrelevant. Performance evaluation in academia is tied to the ability to post X papers in well respected established publications with a high impact factor. This requirement is generally imposed by legislation and regulation. Thus what matters is a publication's impact factor, it's reputation, and whether they are already in the acceptable list or not. If a mass protest led an entire editorial board to leave an established high-impact factor journal to start their own journal from scratch, said new journal would fail to meet any of the criteria that makes a journal an acceptable publication. > Because, again, these folks don't care if anyone can read their research outside of colleagues who might cite them. Thus assertion is also wrong. There are researchers who put together their own journals and use them to circle-jerk their way into relevance. This has been happening for years, and I even know of a case where said researcher even ties his papers to his own congress. However, these journals do tend to have a piss-poor impact factor, thus they don't count for performance reviews.

rwl 5y ago
> Thus what matters is a publication's impact factor, its reputation, and whether they are already in the acceptable list or not. This makes me wonder if there's room for a kind of legal hack that could carry these things over to a new journal. A journal's reputation is essentially tied to its name; and the name is what goes on people's CVs and on the lists of approved journals and so on. It seems like the name is really the only asset of a journal that could not very quickly be duplicated elsewhere if the editorial board decides to move together. I assume these names are protected by trademark law and that the publishers will fight to the death to protect them. But in the scenario where the editorial board jumps ship, is there some kind of legal argument they could use to either (a) effectively steal the name from the publisher or (b) piggyback on the name and reputation of the old journal, for example by naming the new journal "The Journal Formerly Known As X", so that it's clear to everyone that this is the journal X in all but name, and thus should be treated like X for the purpose of performance reviews etc.? Anyone know how far an editorial board could go in this direction, if they made up their minds to do so?

ketzu 5y ago

> Because, again, these folks don't care if anyone can read their research outside of colleagues who might cite them. Many researchers do care, hence they publish on their own website, arxiv etc., too. But they do care about future funding, their career, recognition and self validation, too.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sieste 5y ago

Serving on an editorial board for a prestigious journal is a career stepping stone just like publishing in that journal is a stepping stone earlier in your career. Asking the editorial board to resign has similar problems as telling PhD students to simply not publish in those journals.