Hi,
I'm glad to see this initiative and the momentum it is getting.
I know automation is needed and will provide scale. However, I have a feeling we are missing an ingredient, something (not else) but more.
Freeing academically produced literature is not just about pushing formerly published work toward open archives.
A
lot of work, resources and money is spent to sent
publicly funded work in the private lucrative repositories of a very
limited number of publishers. In France, Elsevier receive from
Couperin-Abes (the organism 'negotiating' and buying access to journals
for most of french research institutions) about as much money as the
world wide Wikimedian budget. As a whole, France could pay a double wikimedia if giving-up all what is know from these subscriptions. Furthermore from the research I maid and lived, academia in its vast majority simply do not care. It is part of the economics of academia (some notoriety-academical-kapitalism). One aiming at a carrier in research can hardly escape this system. And from first hand experience I'd rather discourage writing about it without a secured academical position.
So civil society must push a bit to get back what she made possible. In my opinion Wikimedia is just the right intermed body.
What is done to make contact with researchers showing them, repeatedly, who is financially supporting their work and that public research
can directly be produced under free (libre) licenses ? Going toward
opening knowledge communities more than opening past research would
benefit more the interaction between researchers and the rest of
society.
As discussed with Dario and previously on some wikimedian
discussion on this matter (can't find the URL), I was proposing to
enable emailing corresponding authors via the mailing tool of a
wikimedian account (in use for notifications). And I mean a person-account (not just bots).
Pre- established mails would be sent with links such as the '
Email this user ', but addressed to corresponding authors found in the meta-data or head of the article.
For instance:
~To {{U|the user mailing the request}} Please, consider personalizing this e-mail template ~
"Dear 'Auto- Author-Name',
Searching
the references on 'Auto- Matter-Topic', indicated on the article
'Auto- Wikimedian-article', I found your paper entitled 'Auto- Article-Title'. I was
impeded in this work by paywalls.
Would you please publish
this work in an open archive [Auto- major archives links]. Their are by the
way alternative way to publish scientific work, direct open access,
without author publishing charges : 'Link toward wikiversities
scientific journals'.
Nice formulations about knowledge creation and dissemination etc.
Sincerely yours,
{{U|Auto- the user}} and the wikimedian community."
The contact links would be placed in the reference part or in a template at the head of the article :
Contact corresponding authors, in order to free this knowledge and related references.
Click and send, from your wikimedian account, requests to theses authors to free their work 'Auto-e-mail-LINK'.
* article 1
* article 2
...
If you are working on this topic, please join an open-peer-reviewing group [[open-peer-reviewing group portal]]'
If
you are from any part of civil society interested in the topic and
searching for advanced knowledge on the topic, please join a
[[vulgarization group]] for not-understood content, or a [[bibliographic
intelligence and problematization group]] for 'non-researched yet'
material.
"
I'll watch for the visio-chat opportunity (some mumble equivalent at least if we are many). But the current period is quite loaded, with social, political and work context. So I may just contribute on any meta / wiki page you point toward. I push this mail toward some friends, former colleagues and contacts, as I'm sure some will see opportunities.
Best Regards