I am of two minds about efforts to put pressure on particularly bad actors in the scientific publishing field (such as Elsevier) to reform, since the result of that reform would be a slightly less greedy ectoparasite sucking the blood of the research community, slightly more sustainably. I think (as I wrote here) that the whole model of peer review is antiquated and oppressive and (as the British like to say) no longer fit for purpose. Perhaps we should seek to sharpen the contradictions, in the hopes that the academic proletariat will shake off these leeches. We should strive to make all journals like Elsevier, and double the prices.
Mathematician Timothy Gowers started organising a boycott of Elsevier a couple of years ago. I’m not sure how it’s going, but here’s some information about it. And here’s some artwork:
Although, in fairness, I must point out that it wasn’t Elsevier who first tried to lock down the Tree of Knowledge. It was this guy:
Now that Elsevier has taken to making legal threats against academics who publish articles on their own academic web sites, Henry Farrell is proposing a novel strategy that combines the boycott with an embrace of Elsevier’s tactics:
I think that everyone should submit as much of their work to Elsevier as they possibly can. Any article that has even a modest chance of success. People should bear through the revise and resubmit process as many times as it takes. Once the piece has finally been accepted, then, and only then, should they withdraw the article from consideration, and then publish it on their university or personal website with an “accepted by Elsevier Journal x and then withdrawn in protest,” together with a copy of the acceptance email (containing the editor’s email address etc).
Common Infirmities 