But, Harvey, using your logic, the longer a paper takes to be reviewed, revised, and re-reviewed, the more worthy the journal! I agree care should be taken in any peer-review process but presumably timeliness is as crucial, as is making one’s data available for replication purposes.
I believe we all would agree that there is no free lunch. Someone has to pay either with $ (e.g., author, subscriber, funder, institution) or in-kind service (e.g., editorial, review, institutional). Publishers do offer a valuable service and should receive compensation. The question is, how much is considered fair or reasonable?
Btw, Harvey, here’s a blog post (http://curt-rice.com/2014/09/30/main-problem-open-access-best-way-fix-isnt-going-work/) that might interest you regarding the “purpose” of the OA movement. The problem, as detailed in this Bernstein Research report http://www.richardpoynder.co.uk/Aspesi.pdf, is the movement is not as focused as it should be. Consequently, we are not realizing the impact we had hoped for.
As Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”
