There will always be debate about the best model to fund open access efforts, but our approach intended to give people a choice, not to have any surprises. The choice is for BestThinking to be either completely free with advertising, or require a small subscription without advertising (similar to the model used for example at Ning.com).
Therefore, access, participation, and the ID verification are always completely free for everyone, with non-intrusive advertising (required by ad policy). Likewise, credentials appear openly and without charge for everyone who enters them.
There is an optional credentials verification check feature (which most people will not feel the need to do) that has a cost (because it is very expensive to actually check degrees, licenses, awards, etc.). But having a credential check is not required and doesn't give any more access, features, or capability on the site. You simply get a logo that tells others the credentials you listed are presumably more reliable.
The only other charge is for high bandwidth and storage. Charging for larger bandwidth and storage is quite common where people are allowed to upload and download their own content (or absolute limits are set). We'll keep an open mind about the right level (we studied what others were doing and felt we were in line), but the intention is only to use this charge to address edge cases where high uses are contemplated.
Bob Butler BestThinking.com
David Gerard-2 wrote:
http://www.bestthinking.com/information/about
A collaboration site for new idea and information creation.
Downside (not clear on that page): they charge to show verified credentials ($5/mo, $50/yr).
Interesting idea apart from that.
MetaFilter reactions: http://www.metafilter.com/79989/New-type-of-Wikipedia-BestThinkingcom
- d.
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