[Open-access] Letter to publishers - URGENT

Mon Mar 5 10:38:34 UTC 2012

On 5 March 2012 09:51, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> We assert that subscribers [1] have an absolute right to use machines to
> extract facts [2] from the scholarly literature in all forms [3]  in
> arbitrarily large amounts [4] whenever they wish [5] and publish the output
> as CC0 [6].

Your footnotes make your actual intention clear, but when I first read
this sentence I thought "this sounds like a recipe for crashing
servers;" or at least that's one possible interpretation for the
"absolute right" to extract as "large amounts" of information
"whenever."

I think you could address this potential criticism by deleting the
word "absolute" [very few rights are indeed so, sigh] and inserting an
additional footnote after the word "right" that makes clear that you
of course intend that you (and everyone else exercising the right) be
a good internet citizen. Cameron's point about respect[ing] "API
service limits where posted and develop[ing] polite tooling with
exponential back-off where appropriate" could serve as a basis for the
footnote.

The Un*x command that allows users to prioritise kernel time between
different users is called, fittingly, "nice," and I don't think it's
quite good enough to say that the technical details don't concern you
when proposing automated access to servers. After all, you couldn't
abstract a chemistry article that day if it was bound in a volume that
had been borrowed by another user.

The current tone of your draft betrays the frustration you have
experienced over the past few years, and while that is understandable
to me as a list member here, a more even and temperate tone that
acknowledges some of the potential practical difficulties would
perhaps be more effective. Murmur gently in a voice of sweet reason...

Regards to all,

D.
-- 
Douglas Carnall
dougie.carnall at gmail.com

http://cabinetbeezer.info

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