JoeR2RC

I can't help but chime in with the cost of knowledge petition. It very quickly summarises a lot of reasons why you've probably heard Elsevier are bad and also showcases the resentment the academic community often feels towards them.

I think it's important to note that the Open Access Button really isn't against publishers. We don't operate in a world were publishers are the whole problem here, and we like to think that the Button takes complex view of the problem and is out to influence several actors in the right way. It's worth mentioning we haven't had a huge kickback from publishers, yet. If all that doesn't convince you though, you can just be anonymous.

As a transitionary mechanism, I personally accept it. Traditional publishers are very, very slow (read: a bit incompetent sometimes) and need time to change and adapt. What we have to be on the lookout for though is publishers taking the money from APC's and just using it to further increase their profit margins without making a shift to Open Access. There are a fair few examples of this happening though! There is a huge amount to say here, but that's it in a few lines!

That's a more difficult question than it first appears. We're both big fans of evidence and the results of the randomised controlled trial aren't in yet. We're assured they're both pretty good though.

That is a fantastic question, and something really close to our hearts. We often don't get to talk about this much but both David and I came to this from a global health organisation and this is still something we still really care about. I'm dying to talk more about how the concepts of structural violence can be applied to open access. Translations are coming, that's going to be a focus for the text few months. I don't see much reason why with the technology we've built we couldn't find papers that weren't english. That's something we should test though - if you're interested we'd love to talk to you more about it though.