Comment on Hero
Alue42@kbin.social 5 months agoThe reviewers are not compensated, but the editorial staff that maintain the journal are (part of which is recruiting and maintaining a reviewing board, soliciting comments, sending articles for review/rewrite, etc), as well as the staff that organize and put together the conferences that each journal hosts, and all other aspects of maintaining a journal such as partnerships with libraries and schools, memberships lists, etc. Did you think the fee only covered the Internet hosting?
Sixth0795@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Arxive or techarxive is doing it for free
Alue42@kbin.social 5 months ago
Except those are for pre-print and post-print and don't offer peer review
Sixth0795@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
for the hosting and all
They charge enough to pay for their staff why can’t just make it open access
Alue42@kbin.social 5 months ago
The resources you mentioned are hosted through Cornell by volunteers (who have other full time jobs), presumably Cornell has a rigorous in-house hosting system. And this is only for receiving the articles submitted to them that are pre- and post-print, they do not solicit articles or comments, nor do they have management of any journal publications or events.
I truly do not think you are grasping the enormity of the tasks required to run a journal. It is not simply forwarding the article to peer reviewers and then hosting it. There are legal aspects that go along with managing a journal, recruiting a review board for each article (making sure they are experts in the field, not just random reviewers), getting comments on each article, maintaining a job board for a student chapter, hosting events, hosting annual or biannual conferences, and so many more things. Each article doesn't just get put up online, it literally needs to be PUBLISHED which comes with it's own aspects, isbn numbers, doi number, fees, etc.
The paywall includes paying for the specific article, or becoming a member of the journal. Being member of the journal unlocks ALL articles in the journal (which didn't used to be the case prior to digital editions. I still have my physical journals editions of many journals I'm a member of because it used to be you only had access to the articles from the years you were actually a member and were sent the physical copies). Many people that publish will be members of the journal which lowers the cost to submit articles significantly, while also giving them access to the articles published. Additionally, instead of looking solely at the journal for the article, most people know to look at the source of the research for the PDF (ie, look for the author's university site or personal page to look for a link to a PDF) because generally whoever paid for the research wants the research to be available to be read, especially if it was paid for by taxpayers. And STILL if you find an article that you don't have access to, and your university is not a member to our local library is not a member to and neither can do an interlibrary loan for, you can STILL simply email the author and ask if they can send it to you and chances are they will be more than willing.
So I'm still not entirely sure what the issue is, except an incredibly immature and naive desire to complain about information not being open access because grr I've been told all capitalism is bad, so I must apply it to everything because I don't know how to actually look for information and don't know how to think for myself grrr.