Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Library/Whynotoa

"JSTOR permits readers to access 6 articles per month for free, just like the New York Times."

Not "just like":

• JSTOR permits readers to access 3 articles every two weeks for free - up to 78 articles a year. Register & Read, JSTOR. JSTOR article has it right.
• New York Times allows 10 article, blog, feature, slideshow, etc. views per calendar month for free - up to 120 articles per year. What if I don't want to subscribe — can I still read NYTimes.com for free? Digital Subscriptions, New York Times. First sentence of last paragraph of "Web Presence section in The New York Times article has it right.

Advise simplifying - no need for such transient details in policy piece. There are more important points to emphasize when attempting to persuade OAier-than-thou purists; see next section. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 22:41, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Questions in lead should be ordered in some fashion and answered in same order - FAQ_why_not_OA

I count 6 questions in lead (good start!) and two bolded sections in response, "first", "second". These are mini-essays, not direct answers to direct questions. They preach to the choir, but do not convince the skeptic.

Advise ordering lead questions in terms that make sense to questioners: frequency, severity, followup to former question, whatever - and answering them in the same order.

Easier to parse and easier to detect flaws of omission and commission, emphasis, evidence, and logic. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 22:50, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) format - while devilishly hard to write well (if one cares about sequence, atomicity, coherence, concision, evidence, logic, sparse links, and other good virtues hurried questioners and online readers of answers appreciate) - would go a long way towards building consensus within the Wikipedia Library community on vital OA issues and greatly help in getting consistent messaging out to those affiliated OA communities who might not yet fully understand the necessary implications of the holy trinity of Wikipedia's 3 (not 2) Core Content Policies. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 00:27, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Agree, in that this page would probably benefit from the "less is more" philosophy. It's a pretty long read, and even if one decided to keep the length, each section should have a "in a nutshell" summary that make for easy soundbites. -- Fuzheado | Talk 17:34, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Paulscrawl: Do you think you could add some "core question" for each section, that shows what they are focused on? I would hate to lose the message framework (it actually does a good job at answering some of the main concerns, and provides a method-to-our-madness response for critiques). Astinson (WMF) (talk) 17:45, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Astinson (WMF):, Thanks for the invitation. I'll look it over again today and give it some more thought tonight to see if that is even possible. Initial impression is that questions come first and answers are then tailored to fit, not vice versa. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 19:13, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Astinson (WMF): @Ocaasi (WMF): After considerable thought, no can do. Essay apparently motivated by perhaps needed political concerns, attempting to align interests of WP and OA advocates, but it is not structured as sequential answers to actual questions. Response may satisfy authors' itch to respond to recent provocations, but it does not serve its intended audience and is not likely to be read as frequently or absorbed as completely as a well-developed FAQ.

FAQ, for reasons outlined above, could cleanly sidestep political issues and get to heart of fallacious assumptions about what is Wikipedia and what is Open Access, Open Knowledge, Creative Commons license, copyright, public domain and other relevant concerns that need definition and distinction in question and answer style.

For starters, take the high ground, framing debate by drawing a line in the silicon sand right here:

Wikipedia's content is governed by three principal core content policies: neutral point of view, verifiability, and no original research. Editors should familiarize themselves with all three, jointly interpreted:

1. Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) – All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing significant views fairly, proportionately and without bias.
2. Verifiability (WP:VER) – Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source. In Wikipedia, verifiability means that people reading and editing the encyclopedia can check that information comes from a reliable source.
3. No original research (WP:NOR) – Wikipedia does not publish original thought: all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source. Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the sources.

These policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in Wikipedia articles. Because they complement each other, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another. The principles upon which these policy statements are based are not superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus.

Source: WP:Core content policies

After above defined in Q&A format, what is OA? Are any of its definitions or standards relevant to tertiary, encyclopedic content? Short answer: No. Longer answer: My FAQ in offline development, as FAQs, like good essays, are all of a piece. (If one cares about sequence, atomicity, coherence, concision, evidence, logic, sparse links, and other good virtues hurried questioners and online readers of answers appreciate.) I will have my completed draft posted by Friday evening at url of choice, preferably one that means something to humans and bots alike, such as .../The_Wikipedia_Library/FAQs/Why_partner_with_non-OA_publishers or some such. I of course defer to your choice of sensible title and placing in development or draft templates on it. Re: strikethrough text. I won't have my FAQ interfere with the now publicly posted final version of this article. Perhaps a FAQ later, when I might gauge the frequency of what new questions it generates. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 18:53, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Thought for the day (not a FAQ! ;):

To discourage Wikipedia Library partnerships with proprietary sources of verifiable, original research risks the balanced, neutral point of view readers rightly expect of an encyclopedic resource firmly committed to Wikipedia's 3 core content Policies. Restricting Wikipedia editors' content summaries of verifiable research to OA sources is like asking for the removal of all references to copyright books. To demand or expect preferential treatment for OA sources is tantamount to asking the same for CC-licensed books.

In my book, that's a call to book burning. - Paul S. Wilson (There, I outed myself on Wikipedia. Hope it was for a worthy political cause!) -- Paulscrawl (talk) 17:51, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Copyediting

This topic was split off from #Questions in lead should be ordered in some fashion and answered in same order - FAQ_why_not_OA per WP:TPOC and WP:TALKNEW. One comment and response were moved above for continuity of two discussions. If I made a mistake please correct and forgive in silence. ;) -- Paulscrawl (talk) 15:59, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

@Fuzheado: Do you want to take a stab at those sound bytes? Ocaasi and I have a tendency for writing too much. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 17:45, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Astinson (WMF): - I've started to edit for readability as well. BTW, is there a reason why the Elsevier or other accounts are considered "donations" versus "courtesy accounts" or some other designation? There may be a legal or logistical reason, but it would help to understand this during editing. -- Fuzheado | Talk 19:59, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Fuzheado: We describe them as "publisher donations" because we think of these as no-strings attached contributions to the volunteers within the movement (as opposed to courtesy account, which assumes that a particular purpose is used for the accounts: if editors use accounts for other than editing, we are okay with that. Donation also is less about a conflict of interest, in the way I read it). It used to be "journal donations", because the early focus was on projects like JStor, but I have shifted the language towards more accuracy: either "publisher donation", "partner access donation" or "partner database donation". These, more generally, reflect the nature of the relationship: less about give and take, and more about contribution to our community. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 21:33, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Astinson (WMF): @Ocaasi (WMF): Perhaps the term "access donation" as you describe is more precise and descriptive. It might be preferable as it may mitigate the feeling that these publishers are not donating actual content to the commons, but instead donating accounts for Wikimedians to access their database for summarization. -- Fuzheado | Talk 16:47, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

First paragraph phrasing

The lead/lede paragraph uses the word "sell" in a way I'm not sure the author(s) intended. Might we want to revise this?

"Those are great questions, and definitely a valuable critique of our work. We, too, think it's sad that we have ask for donations and sell Wikipedia's value as a portal to publishers.

With people skittish about money and access, perhaps a better word here would be "promote" or "pitch" instead? Unless the word "sell" was intentional for some type of effect that I don't see. @Sadads: @Astinson (WMF): @Ocaasi (WMF): -- Fuzheado | Talk 17:36, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

@Fuzheado:Pitch is the word we use for our process: Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Processes/Pitching_partners. That would be the optimal, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 21:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Whynotarchive Whynotoa now that final version published on Wikimedia Blog?

@Astinson (WMF): @Ocaasi (WMF): - Nice final version of Whynotoa.
Orlowitz, Jake; Stinson, Alex (September 16, 2015). "Writing an open-access encyclopedia in a closed-access world". Wikimedia Blog. Wikimedia Foundation.

As a courtesy to other editors who may inadvertently waste their time editing here, now that draft finalized and published online, I strongly encourage both Whynotoa article page and its Talk page be deep-sixed in some fashion. Thanks! -- Paulscrawl (talk) 18:57, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Hey Paulscrawl, it's important that there be a version on wiki, even if we just copy the blog post over. I'll note that while this page does need cleanup now, it also includes some additional arguments that we intentionally left out of the blog post, such as the bits about Wikipedia's policy on WP:PAYWALLs. Please be patient with us as we align the arguments; it's been a very busy week of trying to clearly state our views and we have a bit of catching up to do which will take another week or so. Best, Jake Ocaasi ^{t | c} 19:31, 18 September 2015 (UTC)